


Waiting for Sunrise

by queasy_mouse



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-05-08
Updated: 2012-07-04
Packaged: 2017-11-05 00:39:07
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 24
Words: 54,409
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/399971
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/queasy_mouse/pseuds/queasy_mouse
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>AU from HBP.  At the end of 6th year, Voldemort won the Battle of Hogwarts, and the war. The survivors of the Order had to hide openly in the Muggle world, but now has come the time to take back what is theirs, whatever the cost.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This work has previously been published in full on fanfiction.net - my penname there is Willow1593. I'm re-publishing here because I prefer the format.

 

The train left the station with a judder, the rhythmic pounding of the wheels providing a soothing sound in her ears as she leaned back, resting her head on the back of the seat. She shut her eyes, allowing her senses to extend across the carriage. There, the smell of a yellowing book from the mystery novel of the little old lady to the right, the discordant murmur of the teenager's music streaming out despite the headphones, the obnoxious phone call from the youth to his mates, arranging a meeting, the rustle as the pages of the newspaper were turned by the man next to her.

 

“We will shortly be arriving at London Charing Cross. This train terminates here. Please do not leave any baggage on the train or the station.”

 

Opening her eyes, she leaned forward to collect her bag. She noted the man on her right – tall, dark hair, glasses – leave his newspaper on the seat, pick up his briefcase and stand by the train doors, expression vacant. Just another commuter. She picked up the abandoned paper and shoved it in her bag for later perusal.

 

On the tube, standing pressed between a large rucksack and a pair of chattering students, she unfolded it. Skimming the news – murders, mysterious disappearances, political coverage, nothing new there – she turned to the crossword. Clues twenty down (“an Arabic darling”) and five across (“cuisine from the land of the rising sun”) were both blank. She idly filled in the remainder of the crossword in her head, then turned to the gossip pages, and smirked to note the headline: “I'M SO SORRY OLGA” - SAM WHITE COMES OUT

 

When her stop arrived, she dropped the paper behind onto the ledge behind the seats, and struggled to the doors.

 

It was a dark, cold December evening. The narrow alleyway seemed almost empty, though light and sound spilled from the pub, and a few stragglers wandered back towards the station, seeming much the worse for wear. Tottering in her high heels, Hermione Granger ducked into Habibi Sushi at five past eight, for a meeting of the Order of the Phoenix.

 

“Mione!”

 

She grinned and allowed herself to be swept into the arms of the tall, gangly man as he stood up from the sushi bar to greet her with a bear hug. “Hey, Ron.” She stepped back, took a better look at him. “Ha! I saw it in the papers but couldn't really believe it.... what the hell?”

 

He rubbed his shaved pate, still grinning. “You like? Clarisse told me it looks rugged and powerful.”

 

She rolled her eyes. “Ron, Clarisse is so brainless she'd probably tell you it made you look good if they'd chopped off your head.”

 

“Oi! Don't be rude about my girlfriend!”

 

“I'm sure she doesn't mean it, do you Mione?” Harry came up behind his best friends, smiling.

 

“Actually...” she grinned, then rolled her eyes. “Oh all right, for the sake of peace, no, I don't mean it.”

 

“Good!” Ron's grin became, if possible, even wider. “Now, shall we get on with it so Sam and I can go back to our adoring public, and spend the night clubbing. I'm sure there's some blonde wannabe WAG we haven't got to yet. Or rather, HAB in his case...”

 

“Yeah, I saw in the paper. Took you long enough, Harry!” She hugged him. “You OK?”

 

“Never been better, actually. You're right, I should have done it earlier, but you know how it is, the manager kept informing me that it'd make my life hell and all that. But now even the Mail's hailing me as some kind of hero...” he grinned, awkwardly. “Fancy that. And here I thought I'd done being lauded for what I am rather than what I can do.”

 

She smiled, wanly. Perhaps Harry would never escape the chase of celebrity, whichever world he lived in. Once he'd taken up professional football, he'd seemed to come to terms with it better, even when he was forever followed by flashing camera lights. The one good thing to come out of his relationship with the beautiful but evil Olga had been his realisation that actually, he didn't only hate her, but had no sexual interest in any women at all. She thought it explained a lot, really. Like that Cho Chang fiasco in fourth year – Harry said later that he'd been rationalising. Cho wasn't the half of that couple he'd actually been interested in.

 

Ron, of course, loved every minute of his celebrity. Who'd have thought that skills on a broom translated so well to the world of Muggle sport?

 

She took her place at the sushi table, between the boys, and took a plate. She picked up her chopsticks and covered the salmon sushi in soy sauce before starting to eat. As she did so, she glanced around.

 

Everyone was there – Neville, talking to Ernie about the student protests, Dean Thomas, engaging Ron in a discussion of the latest football matches, and Susan Bones and Hannah Abbot checking their blackberries. Ernie MacMillan was concentrating on the food, she noted. Even Seamus Finnegan had made it.

 

“How are you?” she asked him, smiling.

 

Seamus smiled, creasing up around the eyes. “Well, it's been a long day. I came in to Stansted... you know what Ryanair's like.” He rolled his eyes, as she nodded sympathetically. “God, for the days of Portkeys and Floo! I have business in the city tomorrow, so I just bought it forward a day. How's the government treating you?”

 

Hermione grimaced. “Honestly, it's so boring. Of course, everyone's too scared to offer any real opposition, because anyone who speaks out seems to vanish. So the so-called debates tend to be a load of people standing up and agreeing with each other, vehemently.”

 

Seamus smiled at her. “At least you're still there though, I suppose.”

 

Hermione winced, trying not to think about the alternative.

 

Once they had all eaten, Harry took out his wand, and with a muttered spell, the conveyor of sushi vanished into the floor to be replaced by a round glass table. The sake cups vanished, replaced by large wine glasses. Hermione removed her wand from her bag, smiling at the feel of it between her fingers again, and waving it made her glass fill with a sweet white dessert wine. She noted that Harry was going for brandy, and Ron had decided to return to firewhiskey, the drink of his youth. There was some significance to that, she supposed.

 

Harry began to speak. “So, as we all know, it's been ten years since the death of Dumbledore and the takeover of Flobberworm at the Ministry.”

 

There was a slight chuckle around the table, but it was not as mirthful as might have been expected. When you couldn't say “The Dark Lord” or “Voldemort” or “He Who Must Not Be Named” without bringing the entire might of the Ministry of Magic down on your head, you took pleasure in the small things. Like replacing Voldemort's name with “Flobberworm”.

 

Harry was still speaking. “We knew he'd want to take over the Muggle UK too, eventually, for cannon fodder, if nothing else. We wondered why he was moving slowly. We all went into deep hiding after the Battle of Hogwarts, to survive, to plan. We hid in plain sight, in the muggle world, building influence in our different spheres. Politics,” he nodded at Hermione, “Business,” Seamus, Hannah, Susan. “Newspapers,” Ernie. “Technology,” Colin Creevey, who had crept in unannounced, far less exuberant since his brother's death at the Battle of Hogwarts. “Universities,” Neville's turn for a beaming smile.

 

“And meanwhile, Harry and I invaded the world of professional sport and celebrity,” Ron chuckled. “Well, I say invaded, they welcomed two good looking lads with open arms. Especially the women.”

 

There was another chorus of laughter, more real this time.

 

“Precisely.” Harry was laughing with them. “Anyway. We thought that Flobberworm would have just taken over the whole of the UK at once, but he didn't. We wondered why.

 

Our spies made it clear at the time that the reason no takeover of the muggle world happened straight after the battle is sheer force of numbers. There are less than ten thousand wizards in the UK, but 60 million Muggles – turns out that _protego_ doesn't actually stop bullets. 

 

So, when we had to escape the wizarding world with a price on our heads, we hid in the muggle world. Hid, but so openly that we could have a finger in all the pies of the Muggle world when they were ready to attack.

 

And it appears to have taken that idiotic flobberworm ten years to figure out how, but we now have intelligence of how the takeover will occur.”

 

Ron groaned. “Harry, we've been over this. Malfoy Senior's in the running for Muggle PM, when he gets it, he's going to use the army and propaganda to basically start using the Muggles as a giant slave workforce, all that jazz. What's with the history lesson, anyway?”

 

Hermione rolled her eyes. Some things never changed. After ten years, they'd all grown up somewhat, but apparently not enough.

 

“Ron, I don't think the history lesson and the grandstanding were for us.”

 

He looked at her askance. “What? This is an inner circle Order meeting, Hermione, there is only us!”

 

“Really, Ron? So would you care to explain why, when usually we are a group of nine, there are ten chairs at this table?”

 

There was a silence. Clearly, she'd been the only one to notice.

 

Harry cleared his throat, messy dyed-red hair somehow looking even more scruffy than usual. “Hermione's right. I thought it best to remind everyone why we're here before I introduce our newest member.”

 

A figure stepped out of the shadows.

 

“Hello, everyone. My name is Draconis Artemisius Malfoy, and I'm here to help you take down my father and his pitiful, evil master.”

 

There was a short silence.

 

Then all hell broke loose.

 


	2. Chapter 2

 

“What the hell is he doing here?!”

 

“You realise he's the child of the man who's going to take over the UK?!”

 

“He's evil!”

 

“He's going to betray us all!”

 

“You've put the whole bloody cause in jeopardy!”

 

Harry waited, looking impassive, until a hush fell. Seven people had risen to their feet, wands pointed directly at Malfoy. Harry's crossed arms and stiff posture indicated that he was not amused by this reaction. This seemed to quell the sound somewhat, if not the tension, since none of the wand-brandishers wanted to go against him in a duel. Hermione's was the only other wand not pointing at Malfoy. Still sitting, it was twisted in her hands which rested on the table. She looked interested in proceedings, but not hostile, as though she hadn't quite made up her mind whether Malfoy was a threat or not.

 

“Right, now that you've all quite finished,” Harry said angrily, eyes blazing. “How _dare_ you, Dean Thomas, accuse me of putting the whole cause in jeopardy when I have suffered more for this cause than anyone else. Do you know how painful it was to get my scar surgically removed, to watch Ginny die in my arms, to have to live my life in the spotlight so I can manage to infiltrate the muggle world in the only way I can, to follow this bloody plan of Hermione's, cutting myself off from the entire wizarding world, having to start alone again?”

 

Ron stood up. “I know, mate, I know. We've all suffered, had to make sacrifices...”

 

Harry hissed, angrier than any of them had seen him in a while. “So I'd thank you to remember that before questioning my judgement.” He looked around. “All of you.”

 

There were various degrees of embarrassment and shamefacedness around the room. Hermione still sat serene, her short, straight hair flickering with a myriad of colours under the halogen lights, and her fingers curled around the long, thin piece of wood in her hands.

 

“So, if you would all sit down,” seven pairs of legs found themselves automatically bending, Harry could be very authoritative when he felt like it, “I will explain.

 

“Draco Malfoy has been one of our primary sources of information in his father's campaign for over five years. He has been on our side for longer than that – many of our sources reported him 'accidentally' passing on crucial information to them, which has helped us to survive and to plan. And now, we need him in a more direct manner, because the end is coming. Lucius Malfoy cannot be allowed to take control. Another battle is coming, and we need to be ready for it. And to be ready for it, we need Malfoy.”

 

There was silence in the room.

 

Seamus, “But how do you know he's not betraying us, not an agent of theirs in deep cover? You know they've been searching for us for years – it's only thanks to Hermione's plan that we never got caught. I mean, come on, you had to dye the famous Potter hair _red_! And plastic surgery!” He shuddered.

 

“Draco has his own reasons for helping us,” Harry stated with equanimity. “Malfoy?”

The blonde stepped forward. Ten years didn't appear to have changed him much, the blonde hair was still as silky as ever, the nose was just as sharp, and the icy grey eyes still gave nothing away.

 

“Eight years ago,” he began, “my father found me with my then boyfriend in a room at the Manor.”

 

“What?” Ernie looked nonplussed. “You're gay, too? What the hell? Why didn't we know about this?”

 

“Bisexual, actually. And you didn't know about it because it's none of your damn business, paper boy.” The blue eyes flashed.

 

“So why are you telling us now? I don't like you or trust you, and I couldn't care any less about your sex life, Malfoy. We're trying to win a war, here.” Ron had turned purple at the insult to his friend.

 

Harry, who had receded to the relative safety of his seat, stood up again. “Let him finish, guys. You need to know the story.”

 

With a shrug of the blond tresses, the story continued. “Well, father is... how shall I put this... concerned with the honour of the Malfoy family name to a ridiculous extent. We had thought he'd be away at Flobberworm's... honestly, that is potentially the most ridiculous euphemism in the history of the planet... strategy meeting all day, but he came back early, and, well, decided he wanted to talk to me about what had transpired.”

 

What came next, was said quietly, in a monotone.

 

“Father found us sitting on my bed, kissing. Nothing more. We didn't hear him come up – he always had a way of moving quietly, and he disabled the wards I'd placed around the room. When he came in,” there was a pause. Malfoy's eyes, if possible, became even colder and more flinty. “He saw what was happening, and immediately became furious. I suppose that he was still in the mood for Unforgivables from the meeting, because the next thing I knew, there was a flash of green light, and Perseus was lying dead across me. Father shoved him aside like an animal, and began crucioing me. I can't remember much through the pain, but I remember that Mother came in when she heard my screams, and started begging him to stop.

 

“He turned the wand on her, instead. Mother had never been very strong, and wasn't used to torture in the same way that we were from the Flobberworm meetings – it took only a few minutes for her mind to break. When I tried to intervene, Father stupefied me. I think he was blinded by rage, or he would have seen what he was doing.

 

“She was gone from then on – it took me two months to come to terms with the fact that the blank woman staring into space from the armchair wasn't her any more.

 

“When Father, too, realised that she wouldn't be able to come back and be his perfect hostess any more, he took measures to save the family name. He forced me to kill her while he watched, and the world was told that after a long convalescence, she had died of consumption.

 

“Father made me swear a Wizard's Oath not to kill him or harm him in any way as revenge for what he had done, and to spend the rest of my life protecting the Malfoy name. But frankly, I cannot see how it can be brought any lower than serving that evil bastard, so in memory of my mother, I have been and will continue to do everything I can to help you bring them both down. And even though I may not be able to wield a wand to attack him myself, I intend to be standing right beside whichever lucky person is the one to kill Lucius Malfoy.”

 

The room was still, silent.

 

“And besides,” Harry stood up. “If that's not enough of a reason for us to trust him, we all know that our very own Hermione, Queen of the Secrecy Spell, has placed a very nasty curse on the doorway we all walked through to get here. Anyone who betrays the secrets of this room to someone outside without my permission will find themselves deaf, dumb and blind before they can say anything which might endanger us. So bringing him here tonight has a negligible risk, even if he hadn't been helping us indirectly for nearly a decade, and directly for over five years.”

 

There were some nods at this.

 

“Okay,” said Ron slowly. “We all remember Narcissa Malfoy's death, the story fits, and I can see why he'd be angry. Besides, as you say, it's not like he'd be able to reveal anything. I trust your judgement, Harry.” Harry nodded in acceptance.

 

“But what I don't get,” interjected Susan, “is why now? We didn't need to know about this, and we all know that Harry only ever shares information on a need to know basis.”

 

“Ah,” said Harry. “Now we come to the crux of the matter. You're hearing the story now, because we're going to infiltrate Lucius Malfoy's campaign, and Draco here's going to be our way in. And precisely six months from now, on election night, we're going to kill both Malfoy and Flobberworm.”

 


	3. Chapter 3

 

Harry began to outline the plan.

 

“As you've heard, Malfoy Senior wasn't exactly over the moon about his son's sexuality. But we think that rather than a deep-set homophobia, that was more due to fear of what it would do to the family name.”

 

“So, Harry and I have been working together to come up with a plan.” Malfoy took over the story. “When he, or rather his alter-ego Sam White, came out last week, Father asked me to use this to gain increased publicity for his campaign, as we thought he would. A Malfoy never lets an advantage slip, and he sold it to the Flobberworm for me.”

 

Harry smiled apologetically. “That's why the sudden announcement in all the papers last week, rather than coming out when I admitted it to you lot over a year ago. We were waiting for an opportune moment, and Draco needed to gauge how his father would react. Thanks to Ernie's fabulous media manipulation skills, Lucius Malfoy is convinced that the Muggle world is completely accepting of homosexuality, and that it will help boost his campaign profile to have his son come out of the closet. Particularly if he's dating a celebrity. Since even the Flobberworm doesn't have quite enough followers to personally Imperius every Muggle on polling day, Malfoy needs to win legitimately, even if he then goes on to destroy the Muggle government from within.”

 

It was Hannah Abbott who spoke next. “You mean... you're dating Draco Malfoy?”

 

Harry smiled mirthlessly. “Not yet.”

 

“Next week, there is a ball being held at the Manor. For Muggles. Such a thing has never happened before,” Malfoy did not look entirely pleased about the notion, and his voice was distasteful as he explained. “Father has invited all serving MPs and Lords, all potential business backers for his campaign, and several high-profile celebrities to add a bit of showbiz glamour.”

 

Hermione interjected. “Yes, I got that invitation. I wasn't sure if it was wise to go, however – it was one of the items on the agenda for this evening. Hannah, Susan and Ernie are also on the guest list.” There was a round of nods.

 

Malfoy continued. “Well, as of three days ago when my father discussed the idea with the Flobberworm, Harry and Weasley are also invited. Of course, so are almost all of Flobberworm's Ice-cream Eaters – a possibly even more ridiculous euphemism – under strict orders not to do any lasting damage to the Muggles and hence jeopardise the Cause, of course, but there to keep an eye out for any intruders.

 

“At this party, I have been ordered to meet 'Sam White', gain his trust, and become his boyfriend within the next few weeks. This will give my father the publicity he needs, and pacify some of the liberal Muggle opponents who feel that his hard-line conservative stance on issues such as education and prison reform is dangerous. There's only so many confundus charms which can be cast to make political opponents say stupid things, you know.”

 

“Okay,” said Susan Bones. “I understand, but why do you need us for this?”

 

“Well, the increased publicity which this will bring will almost certainly help Malfoy win the election in July,” Harry stated. “Which we need him to do.”

 

“What?!” Ron looked indignant. “I thought we'd just spent two years trying to limit his power in Muggle politics!”

 

“That is true,” said Harry, “but we have new intelligence. We've learned that the Flobberworm sees the winning of this election as a new start, as it were. He's been terrorising the Wizarding World for a decade, but though he is Minister for Magic, he is rarely seen outside, deputising torture to Rodolphus and Bellatrix Lestrange. That has made it difficult to get at him.

 

“But after the election, Flobberworm sees himself as setting up the new order, in the way he always intended – Wizards ruling Muggles. He will come out of hiding, because he thinks that we have all died or given up magic in the intervening time, and believes himself safe. The announcement of this new order is to come at the moment that word reaches Malfoy campaign HQ of his victory. Flobberworm will stand up, make a speech about his brilliance and that of his followers, then declare a new era for the UK.”

 

“Which means,” said Hermione slowly, “that for the first time, we have intelligence of where precisely the Flobberworm will be and at what time. And it's a place which we can all get into without too much suspicion being aroused.”

 

“Exactly. And that's when we take him down.”

 

“Merlin, Harry,” murmured Susan. “That's brilliant. I can't quite believe that you came up with that all by yourself.”

 

“Well,” Harry gave a sidelong grin. “Draco wasn't completely useless.”

 

Draco raised an eyebrow. “You mean, it was all my idea.”

 

“That _is_ one way of putting it, I suppose. But anyway, we're informing you of this now because we need your help, and Hermione's strategic brilliance, to know how to put this plan into action.”

 

As one, all heads in the room turned to the brunette. Without a word, she used her wand to conjure a whiteboard across the tabletop, and used the wine goblets which Ernie transfigured into pens and handed to her wordlessly to begin drawing a mind map.

 

“Okay,” said Harry. “While she's doing that, I'll just bring Draco up to date on how we work. Take a seat.”

 

Looking slightly uncomfortable, Malfoy sat down between Hannah and Seamus.

 

“So, as you know, we all live entirely in the Muggle world, because of the Ministry's monitoring of floo and portkeys. We meet every second Wednesday, at five past eight in the evening. The place varies – Ron and I decide on it the day before, then we use Ernie's newspaper, The London Crier, to dispense the info in the crossword.”

 

Malfoy looked impressed. “You own a newspaper?”

 

“Yup.” Ernie looked proud. “Outside of here, I'm Fred Jameson, owner of the largest free daily newspaper in the capital, and several other tabloid titles.”

 

“So yeah,” Harry continued after a slight pause, “We use Ernie's crossword to tell each other the information – twenty across for eight pm, five down for five past. For example, today was Habibi sushi, and clue twenty across was Arabic darling, Habib; clue five down was Japanese cuisine or something like that, i.e. sushi. Before you leave today I'll show you the list of fifteen which you can memorise, though when we're pretending to date, it shouldn't be a problem because we have a legitimate reason to spend time together so I can just tell you. How's your Occlumency?”

 

Malfoy looked nonplussed at the sudden change of subject. “Excellent. I had to learn in order to keep the Flobberworm out when I started betraying him. My godfather taught me.”

 

A shudder went round the room at the mention of Snape, but Harry continued regardless.

 

“Good. We all have extremely good Occlumency skills here – we've been practicing for over ten years. Don't want any of this accidentally leaking out our heads to the Ice-cream Eater on the street. We also have a monthly meet up to practice magic and duelling, so we can be ready for the final battle. That's the first Sunday of every month -”

 

“Excuse me,” interrupted Hannah shyly. “But don't you think we'd better move it up to weekly? I mean, if you want the final battle to be in six months time...”

 

“She's right,” agreed Neville. “This will get nasty – it's not going to be a clean assassination.”

 

Harry looked round. “Sounds like a good idea to me. Any objections?”

 

No one round the table said a word, and Hermione waved her hand in vague assent, still furiously writing.

 

“Very well, that's carried. Training sessions every Sunday, 10 am at my house in the cellar. There are various entrances to that, all across Surrey, and everyone takes a different route. As my boyfriend, I think I could probably stretch to letting you in the front door.” The last bit was said with a smirk. “I think that's about it – good thing too, because I'm getting very sick of the sound of my own voice.”

 

Draco Malfoy nodded slowly. “That all seems to make sense, and I see that you've taken precautions everywhere. But I don't quite understand the extreme lengths you've gone to – I mean, not one of you has the same hair colour as at school... excepting Granger, and she looks so different without the bush on her head that no one'd notice anyway... and you let some Muggle quack mess with your scar, Potter? Why wouldn't just changing names have done? Flobberworm was hardly going to expect you to go Muggle.”

 

Ron, who had bristled slightly at the attack on Hermione, said “Watch it, Ferret.”

 

Surprisingly, it was Neville Longbottom who explained. “It's Hermione's plan. When Dumbledore died, and we lost the Battle of Hogwarts and Flobberworm put Snape in charge, it became clear that the Wizarding world was all but lost – the Order (we can't say its full name because Flobbers monitors) lost so many members that there was no way for them to rebel. Dumbledore had left nothing behind which we could use against them – I think he expected Harry to be able to defeat Flobberworm immediately – his diaries had something about the power of love - ”

 

“Raving old loon,” muttered Hermione, still scribbling. Malfoy raised an eyebrow – he hadn't remembered her being so reactionary in school.

 

“Anyway,” Neville continued. “Hermione came up with a new plan, a more long-term approach. Those members of the Order who were too old and entrenched in magic, like McGonagall and Sprout, or too recognisable, like Hagrid or Flitwick, or who just couldn't leave the magical world for one reason or another, like Remus Lupin, moved to safe houses outside the UK. Only Hermione knows where they are, because she arranged the move by Muggle transport before any of us knew this world well enough. None of us have been in contact with them since.

 

“Those of us who were young enough to do so went Muggle, changing our names and our appearances to try and blend in as far as possible. We severed all ties except with each other, and the only time we use magic is at these meetings. Harry snapped all our wands immediately, and got new black market unregistered ones from Mundungus Fletcher. That meant we could still do magic, even though we were underage, because these wands aren't on Ministry records.

 

“Like Harry said, we did our best to get as high up in our respective fields as possible. Hermione got us new backgrounds and false papers as Muggles, but added five years onto each of our ages, so according to them, we're in our early thirties. It's not as hard as you might think to swap worlds when you get used to it. We've been trying to keep track of what's being going on by building up intelligence networks across both the wizarding and muggle UK – Harry's in charge, he has the final say on everything and he's the only one who knows everything about who our contacts are and stuff. Hermione puts together most of the plans. Muggles don't know that we're all friends – except Harry and Ron, of course, their friendship is legendary in Muggle tabloids. Hannah and Susan often meet at conferences. Erm,” he suddenly seemed to realise the extent of his monologue. “That's about it, really.”

 

Susan looked grave. “As DA members who fought at the battle of Hogwarts, we were all at the top of Flobberworm's hit list. To save our families, we had to send them into hiding abroad and change ourselves – we've sacrificed the magical world for survival.”

 

Malfoy looked grave, and inclined his head at them both. “Let's make that sacrifice worth it.”

 

Hermione's head suddenly shot up from the whiteboard. “I think I've got a plan.”

 

She motioned for everyone to look down at the table. They examined what looked like some kind of complex scribble, with interconnecting lines drawn and arrows everywhere, too messy to make head or tail of.

 

“Erm, Mione,” said Ron. “Would you like to explain it to us instead?”

 

There were various sighs of relief.

 

“Right,” she began. “Firstly, we need to make sure that Malfoy wins this election. Neville, Colin, Ernie, that's your job. Neville, use your NUS contacts to make sure that the majority of students in this country vote Malfoy, Colin, start making sure that the blogosphere is singing his praises. Ernie, same thing. Positive press, and keep Harry and Draco's relationship in the news, just like you've done with Harry and Ron's celebrity in the past.

 

“Next, Hannah, Susan. Make sure that at the party next week you make it clear that you intend to financially support the Malfoy campaign – he'll like that. Do whatever you have to to keep gathering intelligence on who _is_ supporting Malfoy – we'll need to know that to prepare properly for election night and its aftermath.

 

“Seamus, you've been famously reactionary against the UK and the government in the past – we can't have you supporting Malfoy directly, it would look odd. Instead, you need to use business trips to go to the addresses that I will give you, find the Order members in hiding, and tell them to prepare for battle. I'll give you a place in France where you can tell them to meet – don't give them any actual details of the plan, obviously, in case anyone's turned in the past ten years. We'll portkey everyone at once to Malfoy HQ on election night – even though the Ministry'll be watching, by that point it should cease to matter, because even if they pick up on where the destination is when they check the records the next morning, we'll have hopefully got rid of Flobberworm by then.”

 

“Harry and Draco, you've got your roles – make sure you're gathering info from all the Ice-cream eaters you meet and all the Malfoy campaign members too. Ron, you need to keep being a celebrity, and getting into all the Malfoy parties. As Harry's best mate, Draco can probably wangle you an invitation to most – keep your ear to the ground and gather the info which they can't because they have to be seen to be together. Is that clear everyone, or should I run over it again?”

 

Everyone suddenly remembered why they had called her Know-It-All in school. Hermione's propensity for dispensing information by talking _really fast_ appeared undiminished.

 

Harry looked around. “I think that's clear?” A series of nods. “Good, then let's get to work. I think we'll cancel training this Sunday, since the Malfoy thugs, sorry Draco darling-” the Malfoy rolled his eyes “- will probably watching my house before the ball next week, to make sure I'm not consorting with liberals – better safe than sorry. Seamus, Neville, Colin, good luck until our next meeting. I'll see the rest of you next Friday at the Malfoy ball.”


	4. Chapter 4

 

Hermione Granger surveyed herself critically in the mirror. She wore a sleeveless lavender dress, which hugged her curves to her hips before falling in a cascade down to the floor. Her black bolero and shoes provided some contrast, and her brown bob framed her face, dark hair emphasising the diamond earrings and necklace. Her brown eyes looked bigger than ever, highlighted by the dark eyeliner and soft pink eyeshadow.

 

She sighed, then reached to pick up her clutch. She had never been much of a beauty, but she made sure that Helena Andrews, MP, was always immaculate in make-up and high heels, particularly because Hermione Granger, Hogwarts student, would never have been caught dead in stilettos.

 

She had decided to indulge, for once, hiring a limousine to take her to the Malfoys' Hertfordshire mansion. It would not do for an MP to be seen arriving via public transport, after all. As she sat in the back of the car, Hermione tried not to think about the fact that she was voluntarily walking into the home of a man who wanted to kill her and her friends. The last time she had seen Lucius Malfoy up close was at the end of her sixth year at Hogwarts, when Death Eaters had used Lucius' position as Head of the Board of Governors to bypass the wards and apparate onto the grounds. She had always avoided him in the House of Commons as far as possible, even when speaking in support of his terrible policies, which, as a member of his party, she was bound to do, however much she hated him and disagreed with his ideas. Still, being a Malfoy Party MP had brought her closer, allowing her to gather more information, and hiding her in plain sight – who would have expected idealistic Hermione Granger to speak in favour of the death penalty? Closing her eyes in the back of the cab, Hermione allowed her thoughts to return to that fateful night ten years ago, when this had all begun...

 

_Harry had just come back from his meeting with Dumbledore, where he was learning Occlumency, more successfully this time._

 

“ _It's no good,” he said, as they sat on their favourite chairs in the common room, long after the rest of the house had gone to bed. “Dumbledore won't tell me his plan, he just keeps saying that I can use the power of love to defeat Voldemort. The only thing I can get out of him is that he's pretty sure that despite his claims, Voldemort's not actually immortal, just very, very strong.”_

 

“ _But that's good, isn't it?” Ron looked confused._

 

“ _Not really, Ronald.”_ Hermione remembered herself using her teaching voice, and winced at the embarrassment of the memory. _“At least if he'd taken steps to become immortal, simply reversing them would probably weaken him. Like, if he had used Horcruxes like we thought before, just destroying them would make his remaining soul weaker – it's almost a pity that Professor Sinistra managed to prove using Arithmancy that a partial soul would not have been able to survive the rebounded killing curse. And now Voldemort knows that his soul is already damaged from that, so trying to make a Horcrux would likely kill him.”_

 

“ _Oh,” Ron looked confused. “So what do we do? You're saying we have no idea what he'll do and no idea how to defeat him?”_

 

“ _Well, not quite,” said Harry. “Dumbledore reckons that he won't attack until after my birthday in July – that way, I'll be of age so my mother's protection will be gone.”_

 

“ _I suppose that gives us some time.” Hermione looked thoughtful. “It could be worse. At least this way we can train you up before the final battle comes in the summer.”_

 

_Just as they were preparing to give up on the Potions homework and go to bed, a siren started ringing through the school._

 

_Startled awake, students of all years began descending to the common room in a confused mass._

 

“ _What's going on?”_

“ _No idea, what's going on?”_

 

“ _What's the wailing?”_

 

“ _Is this one of the Weasleys' practical jokes?”_

“ _Not very funny if it is.”_

 

“ _Is it a fire alarm?”_

“ _Don't be silly, Hogwarts can't catch fire.”_

“ _Why not?”_

“ _It's a castle, you idiot!”_

 

_Professor McGonagall came in through the portrait hole, wearing robes but with her hair around her shoulders. She looked almost panicked, but managed to maintain her authority._

 

“ _SILENCE.”_

 

_The room went quiet._

 

“ _The school is under attack. Death Eaters are on the grounds. Prefects, please make sure that younger students remain in the tower – those of age who wish to help us fight may do so. Keep safe, whatever you do.”_

 

_She ducked out of the portrait hole, and pandemonium erupted._

 

_Harry, Ron and Hermione looked at each other._

 

“ _So much for waiting 'til you're of age,” muttered Hermione._

 

“ _Well, of age or not, I'm not staying here.” Harry looked determined._

 

“ _You don't think you're leaving us behind, do you?” Harry spun round to see Ginny, Seamus, Dean and Neville looking determined, though slightly ridiculous in their pyjamas._

 

“ _You can't all come, it's dangerous!”_

 

“ _Isn't that what the DA was about?” Neville looked almost angry._

 

“ _Shut up Harry, you're not getting rid of us that easily. We had this discussion last year before the Ministry, we don't have time for it now. Let's go.” Ginny's scowl was deepening by the minute._

 

_Harry sighed. “All right, but you can't exactly go dressed like that. Hermione?”_

 

_She concentrated, and waved her wand in a complex spiral._ “Cambiaritus Vestitium.  _Sorry, it's the first thing I thought of at short notice._ ”  _All of them were now dressed in grey tracksuit bottoms and black, longsleeved T-shirts. “At least you'll be comfortable for moving.”_

 

“ _Fine, now let's_ go _.” Harry motioned impatiently to Ron, who was examining his tracksuit bottoms with all the curiosity his father usually reserved for rubber ducks._

 

“ _You'll have to show me how to do that later,” he muttered to her as they ducked out of the portrait hole before the prefects saw them and stopped them for being underage. Hermione felt slightly guilty about abandoning her prefect duties like that to follow Harry, but this was more important. Besides, she was sure it would be another false alarm, and the others would be able to take care of it._

 

The rest of that evening was only flashes.

 

_The flash of green when Dennis Creevy, who had crept out of the portrait hole with his brother to take photographic documentation of the battle “like a real journalist” was killed by a cackling Bellatrix Lestrange._

 

_The flash of red light which was the slicing hex, taking down Ginny just as she managed to stupefy McNair._

 

_The flashes of blue and yellow which were her own battle with a huge, brown haired Death Eater, whom she could not identify under the mask._

 

_The flash of triumph in Voldemort's eyes when he saw the small, broken body of Albus Dumbledore fall from the Astronomy tower._

 

_The blinding white light which was the Death Eaters portkeying away with the body, leaving a much depleted Hogwarts, bruised and broken beyond repair._

 

_Later that night, when the Order of the Phoenix plus Harry, Ron and Hermione gathered at the Burrow, it was clear that they had lost. Dumbledore was dead, the simultaneous attack on the Ministry meant that there was no help from that quarter, and it was generally agreed that a strategic retreat was in order. Looking at the shellshocked faces of her teachers and elders, Hermione realised that there was no plan, that adults weren't all powerful, and that it would be up to the next generation, now._

 

_So she stood up, ignoring the looks of surprise at the liberty she was taking, and outlined a new plan._

 

_Once she had managed to get everyone to agree, the Order members said their goodbyes._

 

_She apparated to the nearest village and bought a cheap mobile phone, which she used to book aeroplane tickets to Australia for the older members of the order. She phoned her parents, and asked them to take some holiday to go there too, to help arrange accommodation for the wizards and witches who were fleeing. They agreed once she explained what was at stake, but only on condition that they would come home after a two weeks. Telling the first of many lies, Hermione agreed. Within the month, she had flown out to Australia and modified her parents' memories so that they never remembered they had a daughter, and thought that the Order members were members of their book club, and family friends._

 

_Bill Weasley, Remus Lupin and their families declined her help. Though understanding the wisdom of her plan, they decided to go instead to France and stay with Fleur's relatives. Tonks, looking at Lupin, declared that no way in hell was she going to stay behind. The other Aurors returned to the Ministry – by pretending to be loyal, they could become the Order's first spies under the new regime._

 

_Fred and George also rejected her offer of relocation. They had a quiet conversation with Harry whilst she arranged the details for the others, then declared that they had their own plans, and not to worry about them. Since Harry nodded significantly at her, Hermione did not press the matter._

 

_The only other problem was that of Muggleborn students at Hogwarts. Hermione felt that the best plan was to send them back to their parents for the time being, and destroy the records which held all their names. Nodding, McGonagall returned to Hogwarts to do so. It was not perfect, but the best protection that they could offer at short notice. As for the other DA members, whose families would become targets, Hermione gave them the option of going into hiding in the muggle world abroad with their parents, or staying to help._

 

_There was not even time for Ginny and the other dead to have a proper funeral. That was one wrong that Hermione swore would be righted when all this was over. Though it was too dangerous for any of them to visit the grave on school grounds where the hasty ceremony had taken place, she decided as soon as they apparated away from Hogwarts for the last time that the first thing to happen after they defeated Voldemort would be a proper memorial._

 

_So was born the Order of the Phoenix, Mark 2. Ten years they had fought, and now was the beginning of the end._

 

She became aware that they had arrived at Malfoy Manor when they entered a long gravel drive, surrounded by luscious gardens which were illuminated by an eerie floodlight which she supposed Muggles would consider of the electrical sort used at football matches, but which she knew to be magical. Peacocks strutted around and tinkling fountains abounded, although how they had got peacocks to strut in February she didn't like to think. They pulled up in front of the sweeping front doors, and the driver hastened to open the door so she could step out. She noted with amusement that Muggle paparazzi lined the red carped which draped the fifteen steps up to the double doorway where Lucius and Draco Malfoy waited to greet their guests. _Ever the pragmatist,_ she thought. _Malfoy's clearly trying to get as much publicity from this as he can_.

 

Ignoring the flashes, she walked sedately up the steps. “Helena Andrews, MP for Flydale North.” She smiled sweetly at the man she had been plotting to kill for years.

 

“How delightful,” Lucius Malfoy drawled, openly admiring her figure. “It's absolutely wonderful to meet you in person, Ms. Andrews. I do so enjoy all your speeches in the house in support of my ideas.”

 

“Certainly, Mr. Malfoy,” she said, fluttering her eyelashes at him. “I would like to take this opportunity to thank you for doing such a superb job as leader of the opposition, and to wish you the best of luck in the forthcoming election.”

 

“Many thanks indeed, Ms. Andrews. I hope that we shall have the opportunity to discuss this at some length later.”

 

He smiled at her, and moved on to the next guest. Hermione held out her hand to his son. “Helena Andrews, absolutely delightful to meet you.”

 

“The same,” said Draco, grey eyes giving nothing away. “Do have a pleasant and successful evening, Ms. Andrews.”

 

She entered the ballroom.

 

About half an hour later, she surveyed the room from behind a glass of champagne whilst pretending to listen to a dull, bald man talk about interest rates. It was easy to tell the Muggles from the Death Eaters – those with the disdainful scowls, not talking to anyone but each other, tended to be the latter, though she conceded that some of the government ministers fell into that category too. Worried at the flagrant display of wealth and opulence from the man who was, by all polls, going to beat them soundly at the election, she supposed.

 

Perhaps sensing her boredom, the bald man asked her to dance when a waltz came on. Having no option, she conceded.

 

He trod on her toes a lot. Hermione was extremely gratified when, as one waltz died away and another began, a smooth voice said from behind her, “May I cut in?”

 

She turned, smiling in agreement, and looked straight into the black eyes of Severus Snape.

 

 


	5. Chapter 5

_Oh hell. What do I do now?_ Hermione fought to disguise the look of panic in her eyes, and checked to make sure that her Occlumency shields were at maximum.  _I can't turn him down... that would look suspicious and draw attention and I would have no reason to do so because I'm not meant to know who he is..._ With a smile which did not appear forced, she allowed herself to be whirled back into a dance.

 

That was how Hermione Granger learned that Severus Snape was an excellent dancer. The silence was extremely awkward, though they both spent the dance staring into each others' eyes with a deep intensity, as if waiting for the other to make the first move.

 

When their waltz ended and a foxtrot began, Hermione's brain told her that she should really be making her excuses and moving away now, but her feet seemed to have a mind of their own, and she moved seamlessly into the next dance with Snape.  _Snape!_ Her brain was screaming.  _You're dancing with the man who murdered Albus Dumbledore!_ His voice interrupted her reverie.

 

“Given that we are on our second dance, would it now be prudent for me to learn your identity, madame?” The raised eyebrow was a surreal flash back to her childhood and potions class. His casual assumption that, _she_ would have to speak first, however, made her eyes flash and for a moment she forgot precisely to whom she was speaking.

 

“I generally wait for the man who asked me to dance to reveal his identity first, before giving my personal information to complete strangers, _sir_.” She added the last word mockingly, trying not to think about all the other times she had used the moniker on him.

 

To Hermione's complete surprise, his mouth twitched, as though amused. “Indeed, what an extraordinary lapse in good manners on my part. My name is Severus Snape, and I am headmaster of a selective boarding school in a remote part of Scotland. Is that now enough information for you?”

 

She smirked a little, flashing her eyes at him. “Indeed. That will be enough information to begin with, though later I may require... more. Helena Andrews, MP for Flydale North. Delighted to meet you, Mr. Snape.”  _Where on earth did that come from? I'm not meant to be flirting with Snape! Bad idea, bad idea, bad idea..._

 

“Severus, please.” Hermione really, really tried not to think about the fact that he was her ex-Potions Master turned evil-bastard-who-killed-Dumbledore-and-ruined-my-life. She smiled.

 

“Helena, then. So, tell me about your selective Scottish school.”

 

“It's a school. And it's selective.”

 

She raised an eyebrow. “A bit vague, no?”

 

He smirked, then started slightly. “It's a very selective secondary school for eleven to eighteen year olds with... gifts beyond the norm.” As he explained, Snape studied her face, appearing to search for something. “All students board, and stay there for ten months of the year. I used to teach, but after a change in circumstances a few years ago, became headmaster.”

 

Hermione thanked any gods which might have been listening that she was good at controlling herself, because if not, she thought that his description of the Battle of Hogwarts, which had changed her life and killed many of her friends, as a “change in circumstances” would have caused her to hex him into next week. Or just punch him in that ridiculously long nose. Either would have been satisfying.

 

Instead, she smiled sweetly once again. “So what brings you all the way down to the Home Counties just for a party?”

 

“Lucius is... an old friend.”

 

“Indeed?”

 

“I am in fact, godfather to his son Draco, about whom you may recently have seen something in the papers.”

 

“Ah, yes. Isn't that him over there, talking to the red-head?” She gestured over to where Harry and Draco were talking quietly over glasses of champagne, figuring that since Snape did not appear to deplore her company completely, she could at least use the situation to help out her friends in their faux-courtship.

 

“Yes, it is. They appear to be getting on very well.” Snape's face gave nothing away. He turned back to her.

 

“Helena, I appear to be rather tired of dancing – would you care to join me at the bar for a glass of wine?”

 

He offered her his arm, which she took, and they glided together across the room to the bar, where he graciously procured her a glass of wine. He motioned to the open patio doors, and she looked hesitant for a moment, before noting that both Harry and Draco were watching her, having noticed who her companion was. She nodded almost imperceptibly to them, indicating that she was safe, then followed him outside. It was warm, despite the cold February night, thanks, she supposed, to heating charms.

 

Smiling at Severus, she took a sip from her glass, leaning against the ornate marble fencing which surrounded the patio.

 

“So, what is a beautiful witch like you doing, working for the Muggle Parliament?”

 

Hermione spat her wine out over the side of the railing.

 


	6. Chapter 6

 “Very ladylike.” He wandlessly conjured a serviette with a sarcastic smirk, which he handed to her with a slight bow.

 

Hermione's mind was racing. _What, how, but.... How could he know? Have I put the whole cause in jeopardy, what's going to happen, oh god, oh god..._

 

But since he didn't appear to be either actively hexing her, or kidnapping her, Hermione could only presume that he did not know her identity, but had somehow guessed the fact that she was a witch. What would be a plausible cover story, if he hadn't figured out her agenda?

 

“What gave me away?” she asked, playing for time.

 

“Your mind. When I tried Legilimency, I could tell that you were hiding something. You're a good Occlumens, you kept me out, but it takes training against Legilimency specifically to manage that, so you must be a witch.”

 

Hermione's eyes widened. _Oh shit. It must have been while we were dancing._ She usually kept up a train of innocuous surface thoughts for anyone attempting to read her mind to see, but she could only guess that the sheer shock of dancing with Severus Snape had made her mind concentrate on that rather than keeping up appearances. Perhaps when she had strengthened her barriers, she hadn't put up the final layer, in panic and confusion?

 

However, the fact that he had tried to read her mind at all was something that she didn't like. What was his motivation? “What, Severus Snape, do you think gave you the right to try and read my mind anyway?” The anger was quite genuine.

 

He bowed once more. “I do apologise, however, it is a force of habit for me to check the mind of any new person I meet, in case they turn out to be an enemy. I thought that whilst dancing would be an unobtrusive time to do so.”

 

She raised her eyebrows, wondering about the truth of that statement. She was too shocked even to properly react to the fact that _Severus Snape_ had just _apologised._ That was, from her memory of conversations with Minerva, about as common as seeing Nargles. “So, does that mean that you were wandering through the minds of everyone in that room?” She _really_ hoped that the others' Occlumency shields had been up better than hers.

 

“No, only those to whom I was interested.”

 

“Interested?”

 

She could have sworn that he blushed a little. “You looked as bored as I felt. And I thought it would be a good conversation starter if I could be your knight in shining armour and save you from that horrendous egg-headed humanoid with whom you were dancing.”

 

She giggled at the image of him in shining armour (which somehow became tin foil in her brain), until she remembered. _SEVERUS SNAPE, DUMBLEDORE KILLER!!! Wait... is he.... flirting?_ She tried to keep the shocked look out of her eyes.

 

Looking uncomfortable, he clearly made a conscious decision to change the topic. Unfortunately, it was to one even more uncomfortable for her. “May I ask why you were trying to hide your identity?”

 

“Well,” she decided to go with the first explanation that her brain had suggested. His reaction might tell her what he suspected. “I was a Muggleborn witch, and my parents moved to the USA when I was ten, so I studied at the Pure Spring Academy in the USA. After graduating, I stayed in there for a while, but decided to return to the UK about ten years ago. In the USA, the muggle and magical worlds are not so separate as here, and I have always felt more comfortable in muggle surroundings due to my upbringing, so I decided to live in a muggle community. I haven't really had much contract with wizards here – I decided early on that the state of muggle Britain was so terrible, I had to do something about it, so I became an MP – then that kind of precluded me from having owls flying in my window. I'm perfectly happy using magic only occasionally and being a Muggle most of the time, so...” she gave a weak grin, hoping that her story would pass muster. “As for the Occlumency, surely someone who feels the need to check every mind he meets for enemies will understand the desire for privacy. Force of habit means that I keep my mind blocked at all times, even though I live among muggles.”

 

He looked at her for a long time. “Well, that sounds plausible,” he said. _Typical. No reaction to gauge from... must not forget that I'm dealing with double-agent superspy Severus Snape. Who managed to fool_ Dumbledore _._

 

She decided, since he still wasn't hexing her, to take that as a positive sign. She was hoping that now he had figured out her birth status, he'd react in disgust and run away in horror as any pure-blood supremacist should. Though this meant that she'd have to change her identity again, perhaps move out of London... plans were already starting to form. She decided to change the subject, as she presumed her alter-ego would do.

 

“So, Severus, what's your story?”

 

“Well, that school I mentioned in Scotland is actually Hogwarts school of Witchcraft and Wizardry. The rest is all true too – except I was a Potions Professor before my current post. Lucius Malfoy is actually a wizard, by the way, as is his son Draco.”

 

Hermione tried to look surprised. “Oh? I had no idea.”

 

“Yes, but he... wishes to be more integrated into the muggle world by becoming its prime minister, I believe.”

 

Hermione snorted inwardly. _“Wishes to be more integrated”, Malfoy? Honestly. How is his nose not growing ten feet long?_

 

Outwardly, she put on a worried expression which was actually not far from her inward feelings. “You won't tell him about me, will you? It's just... I've spent so long trying to fit into the Muggle world that I'm not sure that I'm ready to leave all that behind just yet.”

 

He gave her that searching look again. “No, I will not tell him if you do not wish it. It would perhaps be inadvisable.”

 

 _Inadvisable? Understatement of the century, he'd kill me as soon as look at me._ Hermione searched for a new topic. “You say you taught potions? My personal favourite was always charms, but I try to keep up with the latest developments in all the major disciplines.”

 

He raised an eyebrow. “What do you consider major disciplines?”

 

“Potions, Charms, Transfiguration, Ancient Runes and Arithmancy.”

 

“Not divination? I believe that that would commonly be added to such a list.”

 

She snorted in derision. “Load of bloody fakes, ruining peoples lives with their crap.”

 

He laughed, then. She was slightly surprised at that. It was a genuine laugh, not a cackle. She found herself involuntarily joining in, the irony of the situation not escaping her. They were only here because some mad old bat had made a prophecy that only Harry could kill Voldemort. Had Dumbledore not taken that prophecy so seriously, they might have been in with a fighting chance last time. As it was, no one was allowed to go near Voldemort but Harry, who was far too young at the time to do any damage.

 

When they had recovered, he looked at her with a hint of a challenge in his eyes. “So, you say that you keep up with potions developments. Have you read the most recent Potions Review?”

 

“Of course. What did you think about the idea of the improved Polyjuice Potion?”

 

“It won't work.”

 

“Why ever not? I agree that in the format they set out, it would be untenable, but what about combining with a charm which would...”

 

There followed a complex and in-depth conversation which ended up ranging from Potions to Charms to the theory of Magic itself. Hermione found that it was the most enjoyable discussion she had had in a long while – there was never time to talk magic with the Order, not that any of her friends would have wanted to, and the Muggles she worked with would be off-limits for this conversation, for obvious reasons. But it was more than that – she enjoyed having a conversation with someone who followed her thought process, but debated every idea she had. Just for the sake of the argument, she took joy in proposing controversial theories and defending them. Sometimes, she thought that he was doing the same – he couldn't really be suggesting that bezoars be a restricted ingredient, surely!

 

Watching him become ever more animated was also extremely amusing. That eyebrow appeared to have a life of its own. Hermione had to keep reminding herself that this was Severus Snape, _murderer_. Whenever she saw Dumbledore's body falling, she felt the old anger rising up, and made her points just a little more vehemently. The old anger also stopped the little bit of her soul which was now saying _wouldn't it be nice to have someone to talk to like this all the time._

 

They were both surprised when the grandfather clock in the ballroom struck midnight, loudly. Neither of them had moved away from the balcony, or looked at anyone else all evening.

 

Remembering herself, she stood up from the bench where they had seated themselves mid-way though arguing about the merits of transfiguration over potions when transforming one's appearance. Snape, too, stood.

 

“I really must go,” she said. “My taxi is booked to come now, and I need to get home. And before you suggest apparition, I need to be seen to leave in the car by all my Muggle colleagues. And then, the taxi driver would be suspicious if I didn't turn up, and...” She was clearly still in argument mode, proposing her case and dismantling his arguments before he had even disagreed.

 

Rolling his eyes a little, as he had quite often over the past two hours, he interrupted. “I understand. How very Cinderella this moment is.”

 

She raised an eyebrow at the Muggle reference. It was then she noticed the look on his face. If Hermione didn't know better, she'd say he looked nervous.

 

“Would you have dinner with me on Tuesday night?”

 

Her eyes widened. _That_ she hadn't been expecting. Not after the revelation about her blood status. “Um...”

 

“I do not mean to pressure you,” Snape continued, “but I would appreciate the opportunity to... discuss things further with you. And...” he flushed even more, “I asked you to dance tonight because I find you extremely attractive.”

 

_Wow. Way not to pressure me._ Hermione ran through the potential implications in her head – she needed to keep Snape on side, otherwise he might reveal her status to the rest of the death eaters and they would either just kill her outright, put her into slavery, or start asking questions. None of which was a good outcome. On the other hand, a  _date_ with  _Snape_ ... 

 

Her long silence had clearly unnerved him. “I apologise for my forwardness, I am not usually so forthright, I am not sure what came over me, it is clear that you have no interest in me, I should have known, I have always been unattractive, a woman of your beauty would never, you probably have a partner already...”

 

It was the closest she had ever come to seeing him babble. Decision made, she grabbed his arm as he went to turn. “Wait.”

 

He paused.

 

“I... was just considering. I mean, it's so long since I've been on a date, and longer still since I've been on one with a wizard. I wasn't sure.”

 

She took a deep breath. “But I'd love to give it a go. I'd like to get to know you better.”

 

Screwing up all her courage, Hermione stood on tiptoe and gave him a soft kiss on the cheek. And that was the first time that she saw Severus Snape smile.


	7. Chapter 7

“Bloody hell Hermione! There is no way in hell that you're going on a date with that greasy, no good, Dumbledore murdering bastard.” 

She didn't think that Ron could look more angry if he tried.

It was Monday night, and nine of the ten members of the Order's inner circle (Seamus was too far away to come at short notice) were sitting in Harry's basement duelling room. She had called an emergency meeting, by quietly grabbing Susan on her way out of the ball, and telling her to pass the message on. 

She snuggled deeper into her leather armchair, legs tucked beneath her. “It's not like I've much of an option! I need to keep him happy to avoid having him tell the Ice-cream Eaters my identity. I don't really want to move and change my backstory again at the moment, not when I'm in such prime position for the election! It would be a waste of ten years' work! Also, you never know, this could get me information in the long run.”

“Long run?! You want to go on lots of dates with Snape? Are you mad?”

Oops. That had clearly been the wrong thing to say.

Susan sat up straighter. “Though I understand what you're saying about it potentially being useful,” Ron snorted. She ignored him and continued. “What if he's already ratted you out to the Ice-cream Eaters? What if this is all a trap to get the Muggleborn? Even if he doesn't know who you really are, it could just be that he didn't want to cause a scene yesterday by kidnapping you in a roomful of Muggles he was trying to impress.”

Hermione looked thoughtful. “It's a possibility, I suppose. But... I don't know, he seemed sincere enough.”

Ron snorted again. Honestly, he was sounding more pig-like by the second. “Yeah, sincere. This is the GUY WHO KILLED DUMBLEDORE.”

Hermione rounded on him. “Don't think I don't know that, Ronald Billius Weasley! Don't think that I haven't lost as much as you because of his actions. But if there's a chance that I can protect my position and help the cause by dating him, don't think that I won't do it.”

There was a silence. Harry, heretofore silent and considering, spoke up. “It seems to me that we need more background information. Draco, you know your godfather best.”

Draco looked thoughtful. “Well, I am surprised. I heard Severus and my father talking yesterday about a beautiful muggle MP. Father was talking about seducing her, but Severus put on his cold voice and said that she belonged to him and was not to be touched. Father laughed at him, and told him to have his fun. From what you've said, I'm guessing that the 'beautiful muggle woman' is Granger. But that does mean that he appears to be sincere about keeping your secret – they were definitely talking about a muggle, not a Mud- erm, Muggleborn. You appear to have caught his eye, Granger.”

Harry looked from one to the other. “Okay, I think that settles it. From Draco's information, Snape appears to genuinely like Hermione.” He scrunched his nose in distaste. “But you can never be too careful, so Hermione, tomorrow you will wear something with a locator charm and a portkey, and at the first sign of danger you get out of there, even if they've put up anti-apparition wards. Agreed?”

Ron looked very unhappy, but the others appeared to grudgingly see the sense in the idea. Hermione nodded. “What should I carry?”

“How about a necklace?” asked Hannah Abbott. “That would be innocuous enough if he noticed it – say it was a gift from your parents or something.”

“Okay, I'll do the charms when I get home.” Hermione nodded. “Now that that's agreed... I don't think I had much else to say. The emergency meeting was basically to deal with that, really.”

Harry stood up, his knees cracking. “Since we're all here anyway, who fancies making up for the fighting practice we missed yesterday? I need the exercise.”

Hermione snorted. “You're a professional athlete, and you're saying you need the exercise?”

He grinned at her. “Well, it's a different type of exercise.”

Shaking her head, she accepted the hand up he offered. “Anyone else?”

There was a series of sighs that they'd be doing so much exertion so late at night, but they all agreed. 

“Now,” said Harry to Draco, who was looking interested, having never seen a training session before. “You know how you said last month when we were discussing the plan that nothing I did would ever impress you?”

Draco raised an eyebrow with a smirk, looking strangely reminiscent of his godfather. “I may have said something to that effect.”

Harry smirked back. “Try this.”

With a grin, he tapped a certain stone on the wall, and whispered something, too quietly to be heard. The wall melted away, and an archway appeared in its stead, in a manner very similar to Diagon Alley. Harry stepped back, and gave a mock bow, motioning Draco to precede him. 

Stepping forward, Draco let out a tiny gasp which he immediately tried to muffle. But he was not fast enough for Harry, who whispered in his ear, “I told you so.”

The room was... not a room. If he hadn't known better, Draco would have sworn that they were in the centre of some busy city. Crowds of people swarmed past him, none of them appearing to take much notice of him, or the others who had followed him in. Tall buildings, taller than he had ever seen, and very thin, reached up to the sky. They had writing on them, but it was in a strange script that he couldn't read.

“Well, we can't have portkeyed or apparated anywhere because a) the ministry would be tracking it, and b) I'd have felt it, and c) I highly doubt that a Muggle's house would have a portal in the cellar, so logically we're still in the room,” he said aloud. “And this, Harry, is just an illusion, which makes it far less impressive.”

Harry grinned again. “Liar.”

“Where is this anyway?”

“Tokyo, Japan.” He hadn't noticed that Granger had come up behind him. She was still wearing those awful Muggle trousers... Joans?... and a red jumper. Honestly, a woman in trousers! He sniggered mentally. It's... almost obscene. That didn't stop him from admiring the view, however. He saw what his godfather had been on about with the “beautiful”, but honestly, who could stand being lectured all the time? That was the one benefit of pretending to date Harry, at least he didn't talk incessantly, and generally had something of interest to say when he did. Not that Draco was ever going to tell him that of course. Still, at least it had meant that his father's party hadn't been completely terrible – it turned out that rating the attractiveness of approaching witches and wizards was a game they both enjoyed.

Granger appeared to be still talking, so he tuned back in. “...and then Harry said he liked the skyline when he went, so it was just a matter of using the charms we learned to build up the image. The people aren't quite right, though, mainly Caucasian as opposed to Japanese... but that's because they choose the faces randomly from a pensieve of our memories, and for better or worse, most of those are in England.”

“So the location was your choice, Harry?” Draco turned with a smirk. “All those tall, thin buildings. Almost... phallic.” His voice lowered for the last word. Over the past two years, working together to develop a plan to destroy Voldemort, they had built up quite amusing banter, and flirting with one another had become a game, at which both of them had become very adept. Neither ever went further than teasing, though. It came in handy for the deception now, of course. Draco pitched his voice so that it was a stage whisper – ostensibly only for Harry, but loud enough to carry to the others. “Are you compensating for something?”

Harry smiled mock-innocently. “Wouldn't you like to know, Draco darling.”

Apparently remembering that there was more to do this evening than flirt with his pretend-boyfriend, Harry turned to the others. They were looking at him with a mixture of shock (Weasley and Longbottom), amusement (MacMillan and Bones), and resignation (Abbott, Creevy). Granger had narrowed her eyes at them slightly, as though trying to figure out the exact dynamic of their relationship. Good luck with that, thought Draco, since I don't even know myself! He gave her his sweetest innocent-smile.

“Right then,” Harry was back to business, “shall we do two teams?”

“Actually,” said Bones, “can we play together against the illusion, today? We're all a bit rusty on that, haven't done it for a while. Besides, it'd be easier for Malfoy to understand how it works.”

Choosing to take this as an attempt to help rather than a slur on his intelligence, Draco gave her nothing more menacing than a Malfoy sneer. There would always be time to hex later, but at the moment he needed to get them on side. He already had Harry, but he sensed that the others still distrusted him, which would not be helpful when they all had to work together to defeat Voldemort.

“I'll do the settings,” said Granger. She closed her eyes, and waved her wand in a series of brandishing movements, left and right and up and down. There was a flash of purple light which enveloped the room for a moment, and then Draco had to control himself not to flinch when he suddenly found himself surrounded by Death Eaters. Most were wearing masks, but some were clearly recognisable – Severus and his father were clearly among them. 

Weasley was eyeing up Snape. “Can we have some target practice before we start, Harry?”

Harry smiled. “Wait til after, Ron – use the aggression against them in the game. I think we'll start from in that shop, there.” 

They all crowded into a tiny shop. Now, Draco could see the limitations of the illusion – the shop was completely bare of produce, though a wizened little old man sat behind a polished wood counter.

“Right, Draco. When I give the word, the game will begin. The Ice-cream Eaters will begin to attack, both us and the Muggles on the street. Our job is to fight our way out, find Flobberworm, and kill him. The game ends when either we're all dead or Flobbers is.” Noting Draco's slight look of alarm, he quickly added. “Of course, the Ice-cream Eaters can't actually kill us – I'm not that dim, thank you very much. They shoot stunners, and the illusion is programmed to end when it senses everyone in the room is unconscious. The stunners are timed to wear off after ten minutes, though if you wake up and the game is still going on, don't join back in because we want to mimic real conditions as far as possible – if you're dead, you're dead. Instead, if you say Harry Potter is amazing and the love of my life, you'll be transported to a viewing area from above. Make sure to shout, though, so the room can hear you. Once you're there, the room will count you as unconscious.”

Draco snorted. “Harry Potter is amazing and the love of my life?”

Harry fluttered his eyelashes. “Why thank you Draco.”

Abbott spoke up. “Actually, the password is antidisestablishmentarianism, but the rest of what he said is true.”

Harry pouted. “My way would have been funnier – imagine Draco standing in the middle of a street shouting about how I'm the love of his life!”

Weasley looked slightly green at the prospect, so Draco decided that the only possible response under the circumstances was making everyone look even greener, and simultaneously getting revenge on Potter. He turned to Harry, and, for the very first time, kissed him full on the lips, making sure to grope as ostentatiously as possible as he did so. It was surprisingly enjoyable, and he felt a touch of regret when he broke away and said in his highest-pitched voice: “Oh, Harry, darling, you know that I'm secretly madly in love with you and I want to run away and have lots of little blonde babies?”

The look on Harry's face was priceless, so Draco lost control completely, doubling up with laughter. 

“Ahem.” Granger looked mildly irritated. “If you two have quite finished... whatever it is that you're doing...”

Draco wiped his eyes. He was gratified to note that Weasley and Longbottom both looked shocked, and even MacMillan appeared to have lost some of his usual poise. He noted that Abbot was hiding a small smile, as though she felt that Harry deserved it for what he had said before. Bones had her eyebrows raised.

As Granger spoke the incantation to begin the challenge, he felt, rather than heard, a whisper in his ear. “I'll get you for that later, Malfoy.”

He didn't need to turn his head in order to reply. “I'm looking forward to seeing you try, Potter.”

Then, the game began.


	8. Chapter 8

Draco immediately found himself alone – he looked wildly around to find that Harry and the others had begun to walk purposefully through the crowd, blending in with the many faces. He followed suit, beginning to head towards the large edifice, somewhat like the Eiffel tower, which he saw in the distance. Though why anyone would paint the Eiffel tower red and white, ruining its aesthetic beauty....

He was still ruminating on this when he felt a green spell whoosh past his ear. Spinning on the spot, he saw a character in a Death Eater mask firing haphazardly into the crowd, clearly aiming at random and not minding who he hit. Around Draco, people were collapsing to the floor, and vanishing as soon as they touched it, only to be replaced by more and more charm-generated extras. He began shooting his own spells at the attacker.

As soon as the first stunner grazed past the masked man's ear, he turned at began concentrating all his fire on Draco. Hurriedly raising a shield, the blonde threw hex after hex, trying desperately to keep the upper hand. He shot a stunner, which rebounded against the shield, but followed it up immediately with a slicing hex which made it through, injuring the death eater enough that he dropped to the floor. With a flick of his wand, Draco incarcerated him in heavy chains, then began to move slowly forward, wand out.

To his left, MacMillan was fighting two burly death eaters. As Draco watched, he was hit by a blue flash of light and fell to the ground, where he vanished into thin air. Before they noticed him, Draco shot two stunners at the attackers, and they, too disappeared.

Ignoring the sounds of battle which surrounded him, Draco broke into a jog as he continued up the wide, but crowded, street. He would never admit this to them, of course, but this was quite some charms work on the part of Harry and Granger. It really did feel real, especially when...

He ducked the flash of green light which had just missed his ear, and shot a sectumsempra randomly behind him without looking. The extremely realistic cry of pain and the vanishing death eater on the floor made him pause, slightly, and give himself a slight grin and mental pat on the back. Suddenly realising, however, that had this been a real battle, such pauses were probably not a good idea, he turned back to his goal.

The tall tower at the end of the road was surrounded by a circle of Death Eaters. Draco surveyed them warily, calculating the best way to get past them. Surely the fact that they were massed there suggested that Voldie must be hiding in the tower.... it suddenly occurred to him that he had no idea if anyone else had 'survived' to this point, but that there would be no way to get through the defences alone. He looked round. 

A shock of red hair indicated that Weasley had made it – he was ducking into one of the little shops which lined the side of the road. The crowd appeared largely unaffected by the battle. People still streamed past like some kind of human treacle. Fighting his way against this tide, Draco followed Weasley in.

Inside the little shop were Harry, Weasley, Granger and Abbott. They all looked slightly mussed and out of breath, even the professional athletes. Harry's hair was even more ridiculous than usual.

“Draco, so nice of you to join us,” Harry shot him a grin.

“Well, Potter, if you wanted to keep me out you should have made this thing more dangerous, it was almost too easy.” Draco allowed himself a smirk, displaying a confidence he was not sure he felt.

Abbott tapped her foot. “Shall we get moving? I'd quite like to be out of here in time not to miss my train.”

Granger. “You're right, we can get Malfoy's views on the simulation later. Harry, what do you think about the situation?”

Harry pushed his glasses up his nose. “Well, Flobberworm's clearly in the tower. I say that Hermione, Hannah and Draco all attack the ring of Ice-cream eaters from different directions. If you can keep them occupied for a bit, Ron and I will try and push through, then run up the stairs to get to Flobbers at the top. We're not sure who else got through, so we may as well do our best with just the five of us.”

There were a series of nods. 

“Right.” Granger had on that irritating commanding voice again. “I'll go round and attack from the north, Hannah, head from the east. Malfoy, stay here with Harry and Ron, and attack from the south. Boys, when the distraction begins, head from here to the main entrance which is about ten metres to the west of here. We'll start our attacks simultaneously in precisely three minutes time.”

Without waiting for confirmation, she ducked out the doorway, swiftly followed by Abbott. The three remaining men in the room looked at each other.

There was an awkward silence.

“Well,” said Harry with false joviality. “This is nice.”

Draco raised an eyebrow. “Indeed.”

Rond grunted and turned away. Draco wondered suddenly if he'd been more discomfited by the sudden kiss earlier than he had let on. He still wasn't sure quite what had prompted that. It had just seemed the right thing to do at the time. And a discomfited Weasel wasn't exactly a bad thing.

He shrugged, and headed for the door when Harry announced, looking at his watch, “T minus thirty seconds.”

Taking out his wand, Draco prepared for battle. 

“Five... four... three... two... one... Go, Draco!”

Shooting stunners almost faster than he could think them, Draco began felling the Death Eaters who stood guard at the base of the tower. They were not expecting him, and it took them a couple of seconds to get their shields up, by which time he had already felled three. 

When they did start duelling back, it took all Draco's strength to keep up a shield and attack at the same time. Thinking on his feet, he grabbed a rather large gentleman from the crowd who happened to be walking past, and began to use him as a shield. This seemed to work rather effectively, through he noted that the man was too light. Had this been a real situation, it would have been impossible to lift him.

He saw Harry and Weasley make a break for the main doors, through the gap which between them, he, Abbot and Granger had cleared. Abbott had somehow moved across him, so he saw out of the corner of his eye as she fell to the ground and vanished. The Death Eater she had been fighting took a potshot at Harry, but it missed and hit Weasley instead, who vanished immediately.

Harry was still running to the doors. Noting that a way was now clear for him, Draco decided to screw the plan, and followed him in.

Harry was already up several flights of stairs by the time Draco caught up. His sides felt like they were splitting under the strain of so much physical exercise.

“Can't... use... stairs... too... obvious...” he managed to gasp out, as they continued at a more sedate pace to the higher levels.

Harry raised an eyebrow. Despite the running up four flights of stairs, he looked only a little winded. His green eyes were shining, as though he was enjoying the exertion. That bloody.... athlete. Draco scowled inwardly. 

“So what do you suggest, o ye of little breath?”

Draco allowed the scowl to show on his face at the sarcastic moniker. He looked up. They were only two floors from the top of the building, where the bastard and his minions were surely waiting. Perhaps....

He smirked at Harry. “How's your upside down magic?”

He was gratified at Harry's confused expression. “Upside down? What the-”

Mustering all his remaining strength and magic, Draco flicked his wand at his friend, and shouted “Levicorpus!” Harry was grabbed as if by one ankle, and levitated rapidly through the hole in the ceiling the the floor above. The last thing Draco saw before Harry tapped himself on the head with his wand and disappeared was the scowl. “I'm totally going to get you for this, Ferret-boy!” 

Draco smirked, and sat down on the top step to get his breath back.

A few minutes later, he noted that he was no longer sitting on a step, but instead on something altogether more soft. The room was a veritable cavern, about forty metres square. The walls were painted a dull grey, matching the carpet on which he found himself sprawled.

Granger was standing with her wand out, in a duelling stance, a few metres away. Seeming to notice that there was no-one left to fight, she flopped onto the floor next him.

Harry and Longbottom were both at the other side of the room. They walked over to join the others. Draco raised an eyebrow at Harry, who shrugged.

“Thanks to your... unconventional... tactics, I managed to hit Flobberworm and take him out. Whilst upside down.” He shook his head. “Not that I ever want to try that again, all the blood rushing to my head...”

Draco smirked, but was too tired to make the obvious innuendo. Harry, seeming to understand regardless, flushed slightly.

“Wow, Neville, you were great!” Bones said, as she and the remainder of the group appeared from a small doorway in one wall. 

He blushed. “Thanks.”

Bones explained to the others. “He was trapped in one of those little shops, fighting off four of them! He would have won, too, except that Harry killed Flobberworm.”

Noting Draco's slightly confused face, she added. “Those of us who 'died' before the practice ended saw everything from above. Also, as soon as the Flobberworm dies, everything vanishes, as you will have noticed.”

He rolled his eyes in mute agreement.

Granger came barrelling up to them, typically energetic. “What did you think of the illusions, Draco? I was thinking that some improvements to the animation charm on the bodies in the crowd could be-”

Before the rant could set in, he interrupted. “They're too light. I lifted up a two-hundred pound man without effort. Maybe some variation on a summoning charm towards the floor, proportional to mass?” 

She raised her eyebrows, seeming rather surprised at the fact that he actually had a brain. Prejudiced Mudblood. The irony of the thought was not lost on Draco, who made a point of always knowing his own mind. 

Granger was still talking. “That's a good idea Draco... it would involve charming each kilo of generated mass separately, though... maybe we could build it in to the activation charms...”

He raised a hand to cut her off. “Look, you're the genius here. I just have the ideas. Integrate it into the charms yourself!”

Instead of looking askance at his brusque manner, Granger gave one of her beaming smiles. “You think I'm a genius? Thank you, Draco.”

Harry coughed. “When you two have quite finished the love-fest, could we please get on with the debrief so I can kick you all out of my house and get to sleep before the big game tomorrow?”

His over-exaggerated pout piqued Draco. “Feeling jealous? Don't worry, I have eyes only for you, my dearest Harrykins.”

The assembled company groaned, and Harry rolled his eyes. Draco smirked. Business as usual, then.


	9. Chapter 9

7 pm, the 15th of December. Hermione was once more in front of her mirror, giving herself the final once-over before her date arrived to pick her up at 7:30. She had been loath to give Snape her address when he asked, what with him being Snape, but she reasoned that since his best friend was the leader of her party, and therefore her boss, it wasn't as though he'd have any trouble finding it out for himself if he wanted to. 

She twirled in front of her mirror, shaking her head slightly. Honestly, she thought, I've dressed up to go out more times in the last week than in the previous year! She had never really been a girly girl, and then as an MP, she had an image to maintain so going out of an evening to party was out of the question.

In addition, she supposed, if she were being honest, it wasn't as though she had any friends to go out partying with. Aside from her colleagues, she didn't really know anyone in the Muggle world. Working had always been more important. And she couldn't exactly socialise with her magical friends, for obvious reasons. 

She watched the green dress follow her spin, then come to rest. She giggled to herself. Green, Slytherin, snakes... all the associations she had put aside years ago came back in a flash, as she waited for the ex-head of Slytherin to pick her up. For a date. 

Not that that wasn't surreal enough in itself! Hermione had decided that the best way to get though the evening without collapsing into giggles at the sheer absurdity of the situation was to pretend it wasn't happening at all. Which reminds me. With one last look into the mirror, she declared herself satisfied and went to sort out her Occlumency before he arrived.

Going into the lounge, she sat back on the leather settee and shut her eyes, descending into her own mind, which, no one who knew here would have been surprised to note, took the shape of a library. Specifically, the Hogwarts library.

She carefully visualised all the moments which involved Snape as her teacher, as an Order member, and on the night he murdered Dumbledore, and imagined them as images in a large, black, leather-bound book. Then, she walked to the Restricted Section, and shut the book away in one of the chained cabinets, used for restraining the more dangerous Grimoires. 

Hermione brushed her hand along the spines of the imaginary books as she wandered back to the main open area of the library. Right in the centre of the open space, there was a lectern, with on it a large blue tome. She flicked through it, seeing only the usual innocuous thoughts which she kept there, such as her commute to work, sitting in the Commons, making dinner, walking in the park. She carefully interspersed these with her memories of Snape on the night of the Malfoy ball – the beauty of his dark eyes as he cut into her dance, her shock at his discovery of her magic, the joy that she had felt in talking to him. Hermione tried not to think about what it meant that not all of the emotions she was inputting were fake. 

Making sure that the book was open, she imagined herself apparating and opened her eyes. Just to check, she imagined the night of the Battle of Hogwarts. Though she could remember what had happened, and felt the same anger when she thought about Voldemort or the Death Eaters in general, her emotions towards Snape himself were somewhat more ambivalent. This was a technique she had read about years ago, but only used rarely, because it was so specific. It was possible to lock away memories of one person in order to change your instinctive emotional response to them, but to do this for more than one person at a time, or to hold for more than a few hours, was almost impossible. As it was, she would probably get a migraine in the morning. Hermione sighed. It would probably be all the worse because she had used it only five days ago before the Malfoy ball, to allow herself to shake his hand without wanting to spit in his face.

The doorbell rang. 

Hermione felt vaguely impressed by that as she buzzed him up to the flat. It had taken Ron three weeks and several explanations before he'd managed to figure out how the bells on a block of flats worked. For a pureblood, he clearly knew his way round Muggle London.

Snape was standing outside, hair tied back in a ponytail, wearing a dark suit with a black shirt. She almost gasped aloud – he looked rather handsome and much less sallow than usual. 

“Good evening, Helena.”

“Hello.” She picked up her coat from the stand by the door and stepped outside to join him, shutting the door behind her with a click. 

He smiled at her, clearly nervous. “Um, I wasn't sure what precisely to go for... or even if I should go Muggle or Magical, but I thought you might prefer to remain incognito and Muggle so I booked a table at the top of the Gherkin. Is that alright?”

“Wow! Don't you usually have to wait months for tables there? Especially this time of year!”

“Well,” he looked slightly abashed. “Being the best friend of the future Prime Minister helps. As does a substantial bribe and the confundus charm.” 

She laughed at that. Nervously, he joined in, and the ice was broken.

“Would you prefer to apparate or walk?” he asked her. 

She looked down at her feet, which were ensconced in the same high heels as Friday night's ball. “Considering the height of these shoes, apparition might be simpler! But you'll have to Side-Along me, I'm afraid. Apparition was the one bit of magic I could just never get the hang of.” This, of course, was a complete lie, but there was no way that she was going to apparate with the Ministry records showing the name of every person who did so. 

He smiled down at her. “I'm happy to oblige.” They turned on the spot, and suddenly they were standing in the shadows below London's major business landmark.

The food was excellent, but the prices were as high as the building. Hermione winced. This would wipe out her budget for the month – lucky she had some savings! He must have noticed her face, however, because he looked up from his menu to say, 

“As the instigator of this... evening... I will be covering the costs, of course.”

She started a little, feeling uncomfortable at his blunt way of putting it. Severus Snape, being blunt! Besides, some part of her felt that she ought to object on feminist grounds. However, on the other hand, surely Voldemort's right hand man, scion of a very old pureblood family, could afford it.

Seeing her dilemma, he smiled slightly. “Please let me be a little old fashioned.”

She laughed, and acquiesced. “But next time, we're having fish and chips, my treat.”

He laughed aloud. “I look forward to it.”

The meal passed almost in a blur. Though they were both naturally taciturn, there always seemed to be another issue to debate, another problem to solve. Hermione was very flattered when he asked, as they were waiting for dessert

“Is there any subject you don't actually have a Mastery in? By the sounds of it, you're knowledgeable enough in either Transfiguration or Charms that you must have done at least one of them, and your Arithmancy's not bad either!”

“I don't have one, actually. Though if I'd had the chance, I'd have done the double, Charms and Transfiguration.”

“Why didn't you?” 

She thought fast. Because your mental egomaniac bastard boss destroyed my life, and made me go into hiding before I could even take my NEWTs probably wasn't a very good answer. “My mother was ill, so I stayed with her instead of going to university. I did all the required reading from home, but never had the formal training.”

He murmured his condolences and looked uncomfortable. “Ah.”

“What about you?” she asked curiously. “I mean, obviously you did potions from what you've told me, but you seem to know an awful lot about charms, too.”

“I started with Charms, but about two years in decided that my true calling was potions. I was still interested in spell-work, but after a while, all the foolish wand-waving in Charms was somehow less, how shall I put this, real and grounded than Potions work.”

“I see what you mean,” Hermione said thoughtfully. “But to my mind, that was part of the joy of Charms and Transfiguration. The way in which I could instantaneously see the results of my magic gave me an adrenalin rush, made me happy. Besides, I was never brilliant at potions. I mean, I could follow the instructions, but that was about it, it never interested me as much. And,”  
she added mischeviously, “my teacher always told me I was a dunderhead.”

“A good choice of vocabulary.” He smirked. “So you're one for instant gratification over patience and hard labour?”

She batted her eyelids, giggling a little. “Perhaps.”

He smirked. “Good to know.”

Realising that she was flirting rather obviously and clumsily, Hermione reigned herself in. “Actually, I wonder whether I could ask your advice on a minor intellectual exercise.”

Looking intrigued, he leaned towards her. “By all means.”

“Well,” she considered how precisely to frame the question so he would not consider her motivations too deeply. “I enjoy crafting illusions, perhaps more of that instant gratification tendency you noted a minute ago. I was wondering whether one would be able to make, for example, an exact replica of a human being.”

He frowned a little. “I suppose so. It wouldn't be autonomous, of course, and could only follow a certain series of pre-prescribed movements, because of Alexei's Omnipotence Principle-”  
She interrupted hastily. “Oh, that's not a problem. I'm talking more as a work of art, as it were. The image itself – I can worry about animating it later.”

He raised an eyebrow. “I've never heard of charms used as art, before!”

“To be honest, I just wanted to see if I could do it,” she replied shaking her head. “I got the image to copy from a pensive, transfigured grains of sand to match it, then used engorgio to bring them to life size. I even managed to make the humanoid impervious to touch, so that people can't walk through it by using a variant of the repelling charm on the sand before it was transformed.”

Snape was staring at her now, what could be a look of respect in his eyes. “That must have taken a while! I've never heard of such an in-depth animation before. Most people just leave illusions at the stage where they are permeable to touch.”

Of course, Hermione couldn't explain that her actual reasoning was more to do with the fact that it would be rather difficult to practice battles in Harry Potter's basement if you could just walk through all the Death Eaters. She just smiled vaguely. “I was curious.”

“So what's your problem, then? It sounds like you've got all bases covered.”

“Weight. The illusory person still weighs the same as the sand, and I can't think of a way to alter that without breaking some fundamental laws of physics.”

He frowned at her. “So why not just use a larger block of rock to start with, weighing the same as a person?”

She thought back to the basement. Considering that she had animated 200 people, and assuming the average weight of a person to be 70 kg, that would be 14, 000 kg of stone to maintain the illusion of Tokyo for their battles. Not counting all the buildings she had created as well. Aside from the fact that that would leave no space for the Order to actually enter and fight, she thought that someone would probably notice if a famous Premiership footballer started airlifting the equivalent of a small quarry into his home. 

He was watching her musings with a small smile, waiting for a reply. She couldn't exactly tell Snape that she would be making the golems into replicas of him and his cronies in order to practice shooting spells at them, so she simply replied, “That would be cheating! I want to finish using the same five grains of sand with which I started. The whole point was to find out if there was a way of doing it, so...”

He frowned. “Hmm. I admire your spirit of intellectual curiosity, and agree there must be a way of doing it. Leave it with me, and I'll try and think of something.”

The waitress arrived with the sweets, and the subject was dropped.

About an hour later, Snape apparated Hermione back to her flat. At the doorway, there was an awkward pause. 

“So...” he said, colouring slightly. 

“Um...” she replied, just as eloquent and just as flushed.

They both laughed.  
“I had a fantastic time,” he said. “Can we do this again some time?”

Hermione didn't think her face could get any redder. “I really enjoyed it too. I'd love to meet you again.”

His face broke into a huge smile. “I'll owl you. Um...”

He appeared to consider her for a moment, then leaned down awkwardly and kissed her full on the mouth.

Hermione squeaked in surprise, but this was rapidly overtaken by enjoyment. She felt as though she was melting, flying and drowning all at once, and in the most pleasurable possible way.... She kissed back as best she could and was rewarded when he moaned into her mouth.

All too soon, she felt the pressure on her lips cease and she opened her eyes to find him standing, staring at her incredulously. 

“That's enough for one evening, I think,” he gasped. “If you want to retain any virtue at all, that is.”

He raised an eyebrow to show he was joking, and she laughed weakly. “I think so. Good night, Severus. Owl me.”

“Good night, Helena. I will.”

Hermione closed the door behind him, and collapsed in a heap on the floor, clutching her mouth. The occlumency barriers she had been holding up with the last of her strength gave way, and she found herself suddenly overwhelmed by the events of the Battle of Hogwarts, seeing his face as he pushed past her up the stairs, Dumbledore's body as it fell, fell, fell...

Hermione Granger dropped all pretence and cried uncontrollably on the floor of her hallway. She had just had the best kiss of her life, following the best date of her life, with a Death Eater. Not just a Death Eater, but Severus Snape. Her ex-teacher. The one who murdered Dumbledore in cold blood.

And in a week or two, she would be seeing him again. Hermione couldn't decide whether that was the best or the worst thing about the whole god-damned situation.


	10. Chapter 10

It was only three days later that, as Hermione sat watching Newsnight, she heard a tapping at her window. Hurriedly, she raced across the room to let the huge brown barn owl in, praying to any deities which might be listening that none of her neighbours had noticed it. The note attached was brief, but to the point:

_Dear Helena,  
I believe I have found the solution to your most interesting charms dilemma, which we discussed last time. Meet me on Sunday to discuss? Hyde Park, 6pm. You bring the fish and chips.  
SS_

She laughed aloud at his audacity. Hurriedly, she grabbed a piece of notepaper off her desk. Hardly parchment, but it would do.

_Dear Severus,  
What if I were unavoidably busy on Sunday evening? Besides, how would a poor foolish girl like me know what you want from the fish and chip shop?  
Helena_

The response was surprisingly fast. Hermione had always expected that post owls travelled through some kind of wormhole – how on earth had it got to Scotland and back in the space of ten minutes? Maybe they apparated or something. Hmm... something to ask Severus at some point.

_Helena,  
You're not. Otherwise you would have said so by now. I note that you used the subjunctive “if I were” as opposed to simply declining. So, 6 pm then.  
SS  
PS. Roe and chips, don't hold the mushy peas._

She laughed even louder this time. Well, he did have a point.

_Severus,  
Mushy peas are an abomination. Buy them yourself. Besides, my promise definitely extended only to fish and chips.  
Helena._

 

_Helena,  
You wound me with your semantics. Very well, I will do the gentlemanly thing and acquiesce to your request. I'll meet you at the horrendously named Joy of Life Fountain.  
Severus._

Hermione sniggered, then sighed. Why, oh why, was he so perfect for her, but also an evil murderer? Trust her luck. She had thought about this a lot over the past few days, especially as being an MP was hardly a riveting job, when all she had to do was smile and nod. Of course, that was the only reason her ex-professor occupied so many of her thoughts. Hermione had decided that, since it looked like she'd be having at least a few more dates with Snape, enough with the Occuling against him specifically, because she couldn't stand the migraines. She would just have to amalgamate the memories of evil-Snape with Severus. This seemed to be working – now, she couldn't think of the astronomy tower without seeing his black eyes gazing into hers. Funnily enough, however, the dinner where he had acted as the man of her dreams remained unencumbered by anger, but she was sure that her intellectual knowledge that he was evil would pop up eventually and sort her brain out soon.

Oh shit. Had she just thought the phrase 'man of her dreams' in relation to Severus? They'd only been on two dates, for heavens' sake!

_Severus,  
See you there.  
Helena._

When Severus' owl, Anubis, returned with this last missive, he smiled weakly to himself before incinerating it as he had the others. He drained the little remaining in the glass of firewhiskey at his elbow, before bringing it crashing down onto the desk. Was it a bad thing that the only way he could write to the woman was after four glasses of firewhiskey had lowered his inhibitions enough for him to say what he was actually thinking? Probably. Still, he seemed to have struck the right note, because she'd agreed to meet him again. Severus shook his head. This was entirely ridiculous. He'd spent the past three days obsessed by that little problem of hers, purely because it was intellectually interesting of course. Then, he'd written four drafts of the note, each of which sounded more dumb and lovesick than the last, before giving up completely and getting smashed on firewhiskey and sending off what was perhaps the least emotional note ever. Which had worked.

Dear God, had he just thought the word lovesick in relation to her? Bugger. He'd only met the woman twice, for heavens' sake!!

 

X

 

Hermione was sitting on the edge of the fountain, reading one of her favourite novels when she felt a tap on her shoulder. She turned to smile at Severus, and stowed the book in her beaded handbag as she stood up to greet him.

He gave her a peck on the cheek, which made her blush, and his skin flushed a little too. “Em.. hello, Helena,” he muttered.

“Hello Severus.”

She picked up the white plastic bag containing the fish and chips and put her arm through his.

“Terry Pratchett?” he asked her, gesturing the handbag where she had stowed the novel as they began to walk. “I'd have thought you were more the type to be reading the original Shakespeare instead of parodies.”

She smiled. “I do love the original play, but Shakespeare's tragedies never really appealed in the same way as the comedies, so this version of Macbeth is by far my favourite. Discworld is rather amusing overall of course, though his ideas of how magic works are obviously fatally flawed.”

He replied, “I'm not so sure. I mean, obviously, the idea that using magic should be avoided at all costs is wrong, for example, you've obviously got warming charms on the food in that bag. That's not hurting anyone, nor draining you in particular. But the fact that there is always a price to be paid, like in Witches Abroad – sometimes, people forget that. They forget that every spell drains you of energy, and that everyone, I mean everyone, has their limitations.”

Severus paused, seeming to notice that he'd rather made a speech there. Hermione was fascinated – why on earth was the Death Eater arguing the point of view of a Muggle author?

“You seem to be rather up to date on Muggle fantasy, for a wizard,” she commented.

He shrugged. “I like to be well read. And I have to admit, Muggle Literature far outstrips our own. The trouble with having a society which hasn't progressed since the 1800s is just that – no progress since the 1800s!”

Fortunately for Hermione, it was at this point that they reached their destination. She really didn't want to have to enter into a deep sociological debate on wizarding society because she'd have no way of not revealing her extensive knowledge of the British version, and absolute ignorance of the American.

Severus had stopped at what looked to her like the middle of a green area of parkland. She noticed him surreptitiously wave his arm at the empty air and mutter something, then he stepped forward and vanished into thin air. She was about to gasp in shock, but then realised that she really ought to be used to it by now, she was a witch after all! She stepped forward after him.

Hermione found herself under a huge oak tree, whose branches stretched up to the sky as though they were reaching for heaven. Since it was 6 pm in mid-December, there were no leaves on them, or sun to shine through, but she could see the twinkling of the stars above, despite the lights and smog of London. She felt suddenly much warmer, despite the chilly air, and shrugged off her long blue coat, dumping it in a pile on the suddenly bone dry earth, followed by her gloves and scarf. She was left in her purple smock, black woolen tights, and knee-high black boots.

The tree was truly enormous. The trunk alone must have been ten metres in diameter. The gnarled roots stretched outwards, encircling a large hollow in the base of the tree. There was a small light bobbing in the air just above the hollow, which illuminated the scene below. A blue picnic blanket covered the ground, and on it sat a bottle of white wine and two glasses, and a small styrofoam container.

Severus had shed his own coat and was standing next to her in an open necked shirt and black jeans. She paused to admire the view – he looked fabulous in them. Though why a pure-blood supremacist was wearing jeans... She noticed suddenly that he was looking at her nervously. “Is it OK?”

“It's perfect, Severus.” She smiled at him, feeling her heart lift a little seeing him mirror the expression.

She sat down on the rug and motioned to him to join her, which he did, folding up against the base of the tree like a cat.

“Now,” she said in a businesslike tone as she began to unpack her offering of fish and chips. “You said you'd managed to find a solution to my charms problem?”

“Yes. It's quite simple really.”

She glared at him. He smirked, raising an eyebrow. She felt a shiver go through her, and nearly lost her train of thought. That eyebrow...

“Ahem. Anyway. If it's so simple, care to demonstrate?”

Seeming to sense the reason for her sudden discomfort, he smirked a little more and then picked up a handful of dirt from the earth. He levitated it to about a foot in the air, then pointed at the ground below it and said, “Orbis terrarum citatus vos, congruens ut pondus.”

The clod of earth dropped immediately to the floor. With a grin, he flicked his wand and transformed it into a minute version of the woman next to him, boots and all, before enlarging it to full size. He bowed, and gestured to the real Hermione. She stood, and tried to lift herself up (which was a very surreal thing to do!). Her hand went straight through the illusion's stomach. With a grin, she took out her own wand and cast “illuisire repellus”.

Severus looked on with interest. “Interesting,” he muttered. “Literally making the illusion repel anyone who comes near it. I presume you're using the interactions between the electrons in the clod of dirt itself and the atoms in your own body?”

“Right in one,” she said, turning to him. “It took a while, but once you get the particles behaving as the illusion of the figurine to believe that they're actually one entity, you can charm them together.”

Turning back to the image of herself, she gave it a shove. Instead of simply collapsing as the lighter people in Harry's basement tended to do, it moved slightly before bouncing back. She shoved it harder, and it fell backwards onto the floor. Bending over, she tried to lift it, but it was too heavy. She estimated, in fact, that it weighed about the same as her. Shrinking the image down to the size of her handbag, she tried again to lift it. This time, it was lighter, and she could lift it with one hand.

Ecstatic, Hermione unceremoniously dropped the mini-Hermione back to earth and threw herself on Severus. Literally. He responded with an “oof!” of pain, which soon turned into a moan of pleasure as she started kissing him victoriously.

“You're,” kiss. “A,” kiss. “Bloody,” kiss. “Genius!” kiss.

“I endeavour to please,” he muttered breathlessly, disentangling himself somewhat.

Recalling herself, Hermione sat back. Murderer, murderer, must remember.... Somehow, she couldn't reconcile the image of the broken body with the man sitting beside her. “That's brilliant. You somehow did a variation of the summoning charm on the floor, I presume, which increased proportional to the size of the figurine. That's genius!”

He grinned at her smugly, delirious in triumph. “I know. I just got the ground to have a general summoning charm on the dirt, just enough to oppose the levitation I'd done, increasing it proportional to the cube of the enlargement factor of the engorgio, which of course corresponds to volume and hence mass.”

“That's fantastic! And of course, I could charm as much floor as I wanted, all at once! So it would work for multiple characters!” Hermione was thinking out loud now.

He frowned a little. “I suppose it would. Please tell me you're not creating an army or something!” Severus laughed a little, to show he was joking.

She hurriedly shook her head. “Of course not!” She decided to change the subject again, before he started wondering exactly what she did plan to do.

“Shall we eat? I'm starving!” She cast one last warming charm on the fish and chips, before covering hers in salt and vinegar and starting to munch. She'd regret this heavy food later, when she went to training at Harry's, but for now, the smell was just too good.

Severus reached across her and poured them both some wine, before grabbing the styrofoam container she'd noticed earlier. He opened it, then waved it under her nose with a mischevious grin.

She mock-glared. “I told you that mushy peas are evil!”

Their laughter echoed under the trees. Or would have done, except that Severus' strong wards included excellent silencing charms.


	11. Chapter 11

"Still here, Milly?" Amelia Smith, the woman known in a former life as Susan Bones, looked up from her paperwork. Her Operations Director, Matt, was standing in the doorway, grinning at her. "It's 9 pm, the day before Christmas Eve – surely you have somewhere else to be?"

She smiled at him. They had been flirting for a while now, but she was reluctant to take things any further – office romance, not a great idea. Besides, there was the whole "secret witch" thing. "Pot calling kettle?" she asked with a grin.

He shrugged. "Well, I was just heading out." He flashed a rakish grin. "Care to come out for a drink?"

Susan's smile froze. "You know that's not a good idea, Matt."

"It's just a drink. It's Christmas."

Susan looked at her watch. He was right, this was silly, and well, she was getting a bit bored, sitting at her desk, trying to manufacture a reason not to go home to an empty flat. Christmas was always the hardest time – everyone had someone, except her. She hadn't seen her family since the Christmas of her fifth year at Hogwarts. In her sixth, the year of the Battle of Hogwarts, she had stayed at school. How foolish that felt now – missing the last crucial holiday before her life collapsed. Well, there was the yearly holiday with the Order, of course, but, though they had become a family of sorts it wasn't quite the same. Maybe a drink would help her not feel so empty this evening.

She looked at him over her glasses. "One drink!"

He smiled, and offered her his arm. Shrugging her shoulders into her coat, she accepted it, and they walked out into the dark winter evening to the pub.

X

Anna Seymour had had no such qualms about starting a relationship. Notwithstanding the fact that he had no idea that her name was really Hannah Abbott, and that she was a witch, she had been with Dan for the past three years. At the moment, they were curled up on the settee in their flat, watching Love Actually. This had, of course, been all Hannah's idea. Dan saw himself as far too manly to be watching a chick flick, but she would have sworn that he was secretly enjoying it.

"Baby?" his arm tightened around her slightly.

"Yeah?"

"You sure about coming over for Christmas? I mean, you know that Mum and Dad 'd love to have you."

She kissed him. "You know that I'd love to come, but this trip with Milly is an annual tradition. You know, drinking cocktails on the beach, ogling all the hot men..."

"Not too much ogling I hope!"

Hannah grinned at him saucily. "Well, I'd hardly tell you, would I?"

He growled, and, regardless of the movie, started tickling her til she begged for mercy.

When he let her up, she continued. "Well, all right, maybe not that much ogling, but for the past seven years we leave on Christmas Eve, and spend til the second exploring some exotic place. And you have met Milly, so it's hardly like leaving me with a stranger." She neglected to mention the other eight members of the Order who would also be accompanying them on this holiday.

"All right, all right." He put his arm round her again. "Maybe next year."

Hannah thought about the Order's plans for June. "I promise you, if we're both around next year, then I will come with you to your parents for Christmas."

Dan wasn't really listening, having returned his attention to the television, where there were now two people having sex. She grinned to herself – typical.

X

Ernie Macmillan was putting the final touches to his editorial for the Christmas Day edition. He leafed through the proofs for the articles to fill space for the guest editors while he was on his break.

Top of the pile were a few articles on Malfoy and Harry, who had obligingly been seen falling out of several nightclubs together. It helped that they had been able to tip Ernie off the week before on where they'd be. The accompanying article contained a nice set of quotations from "anonymous friends of the couple" (Ernie himself, with suggestions from Harry and Malfoy) on the joy of the budding relationship, and a few fawning comments from Harry about the "deep and abiding support of the fans, helping me through this difficult time." Ernie made a mental note to talk to Harry about running an exclusive interview and photoshoot with the couple at some point.

Next, an article on the PM's latest gaffe – when out Christmas shopping, he had made an unfortunate politically incorrect joke at an Asian shop assistant. Ernie highly suspected another confundus charm: the man usually had more sense! Next to this lay an opinion piece on Malfoy's trip to an orphanage. He wrote a post-it note - put the two articles on the same page. Subtly emphasise the comparison.

Below these lay an op-ed on the PM's wife's terrible dress sense for the Christmas church service. He read it over; wow, Liz was really good at the snide, cutting remark thing. Considering that the service itself wasn't until tomorrow, she'd done rather well, with two thousand pre-written words on terrible outfits the poor woman had worn in the past, and vague suggestions of impropriety. Nothing to cause a lawsuit, but sentences like: "Since she doesn't work, and her children are all grown up, and she obviously doesn't spend her days worrying about her appearance, what does Marjory actually do?" The piece just needed a few unflattering pictures from tomorrow morning's service and a few outfit-specific jibes, then it was ready for publication.

At the bottom of the pile were various obligatory photos of beautiful women wearing little more than Santa hats and tassels – well, the Crier _was_ a tabloid, and if Ernie knew anything, it was how to sell what the customer wanted.

He looked at his watch. Rolex, of course. When one worked as hard as he did, it was good to be able to indulge, and besides, it was good for the image. Before he could register the time, however, he heard loud voices coming from the open plan office outside his door. Time to go, then, he presumed.

That evening, December 23rd was the paper's office Christmas party. Ernie usually made a point of not socialising with the staff, aside from a few drinks of a Saturday night, to avoid complications when making tough editorial decisions. However, the Christmas party was always the exception. There was always a clear sign on the door, literally (it was big and red and white and they tacked it to the doors of whichever nightclub had been rented for the night) – WHAT HAPPENS AT THE PARTY, STAYS AT THE PARTY. Despite this, Ernie always found at least a couple of the page 3 girls receptive to his advances, thinking that sleeping with the Editor would get them bumped up. Fortunately, his friendly PA Erica had always set them straight by the time he got back from his holidays on the third of January, and, well, if they ever caused trouble he could always dump them from the paper.

He grinned with a rather shark-life expression, pulling his coat on over the suit, and heading to his personal limousine to be driven to the nightclub hired out for the paper's personal use for the evening. Sure, he was a Hufflepuff. The traits associated with that house were loyalty, dedication and a willingness to do hard work: Ernie Macmillan had those in spades. But no one ever said anything about _nice_.

X

Neville Longbottom, too, was in a nightclub. Technically, he was no longer a student himself, having gained his PhD in Botany three years before, but a large part of being the Head of HR at the NUS was networking with students from universities across the country. And that meant that when the London Universities had a joint Christmas party for their most important faculty members and the heads of their respective unions, it was the perfect opportunity for some subtle politicking.

He nursed a beer at the bar, chatting to Simon Anderson, a politics student at LSE and a significant force in student activism.

"So, what do you think of Malfoy?" Simon was asking.

"Well, obviously, his politics have distinct advantages for students, so I suppose I'm in favour of him on a purely self-interested point of view." Neville had learned over the years, admittedly with some coaching from Hermione at the beginning, that to be too openly supportive of anything often had the opposite effect on the target.

"But what about the social stuff? He's quite hard-line, isn't he?"

Neville shrugged. "Well, I guess it depends on what you mean. Like, prisons – personally, I believe that prison needs to be a deterrent, so it should be tough. The reoffending rate at the moment is ridiculous – Malfoy's ideas could deal with that." That was another thing he'd learned – play up the prisons angle. In his experience, which had become rather extensive, even the most liberal of people tended to agree that the prison reoffending rate was rather high. And getting them distracted with that tended to help skirt over some of Malfoy's more obnoxious humanitarian policies.

"If they work."

"Well, liberalism hasn't so far."

There commenced a diatribe from Simon about the evils of overly left wing policy. Neville smiled and nodded, pleased that his subtle manipulations of the past few weeks appeared to be working. He'd managed, with the help of a few well-placed suggestibility potions slipped into Simon's drinks, to get the other man talking about how the country was going to the dogs and other such sentiments, making him prime for Malfoy's propaganda. Neville still hated to do this, but there was really no choice.

He sneaked a look at his watch, bored now of the long speech. Nearly midnight, good. Neville excused himself with alacrity, and went home to pack. Thank the gods for the Order's holiday tomorrow, he really needed a break.

X

Seamus Finnegan did not like camels. He had decided this about thirty seconds into his solo camel ride across the Atacama desert. Atacama! Yes, they were doing the rounds, a different desert every year in order to stay unobtrusive, but really! Who came up with this one? Did they have to add jetlag to an already uncomfotable journey by travelling as far from the UK as humanly possible? At least the Sahara had been vaguely the same timezone, and there had been jeeps as opposed to these bloody uncomfortable _creatures_. When he found out whose idea this bloody camel had been...

Two hours later, he was just really, really bored. This had overtaken his anger, fortunately for whoever had thought of the camels. At least he had his iPod, he supposed. Heavy metal rock for the whole trip had done wonders for his mood. Once his specially modified compass (another Hermione product - where she found the time he really did not understand!) started spinning madly, he let out a sigh of relief, pulled on the reins and the camel, which he had christened "You Bloody Creature", came to a juddering halt. Seamus promptly fell off. Cursing under his breath, he picked himself up and said to the apparently empty air "Fifty flying flobberworms."

Nothing apparently happened, except that a thin black line appeared in the sand in front of him. Seamus bent over and touched a fingertip to it. "Seamus Alosius Finnegan," he muttered.

He looked up, and, sure enough, the large marquee they used for these holidays had appeared in front of him. Seamus grabbed You Bloody Creature by the reins and dragged it across the line with some difficulty, tying it to a post stuck in the ground. Hannah and Susan were lying on sun loungers outside, wearing bikinis and sunglasses, clearly enjoying the thirty degree heat. Ron and Harry were zooming around on brooms, chasing a small golden snitch. As he watched, Harry caught it, and they both flew down to earth to meet him.

"Enjoy your journey?" Ron was smirking.

"Bastard. It was you, wasn't it?"

"I have no idea what you mean, Seamus dear."

The Irishman rolled his eyes at the mock-innocent look. "One word: Camel."

"Well, yes, Hermione left me in charge of arranging the travel for you and Neville since we were in Chile for a game anyway."

"And you thought camels were a good plan? What the hell?"

Ron was grinning. "She did say to make sure they were varied for all of us. So you and Neville got the camels. It's very authentic."

"How did you get here then?"

Harry was sniggering, too. "Ron, Draco and I came by broom. About an hour from the nearest city, perfectly simple."

Seamus glowered at them. "Thought we weren't allowed to use wizarding transport?"

Hermione had come out of the tent to join them. "I did tell them it was a bad idea!"

"Oh, come on Mione," whined Ron. "We're in a desert, any muggles who saw us would just think it was a mirage or whatever."

Hermione looked like she was about to reply, but at this point Ernie appeared on the black line demarcating the edge of their camp. "Just a sec," he called to them, then with a _vroooooom_ he drove a large Harley Davidson motorbike into the site.

"Flash bastard." Ron shook his head.

"Coming from the owner of a Mercedes?" Harry raised an eyebrow.

Once Ernie had joined them, Harry began to speak. "Right, only Neville to wait for now. Same drill as always, we have a five kilometre circular perimeter, shown by the black thread. It extends high enough that we can fly pretty much as we like, the spare brooms are in the shoe room in the tent as usual. The climate control outside is off, so it'll be cold at night, but it's on inside so it'll 25 degrees in the day and 20 at night in the tent. You've all got your usual rooms, same passwords you set last time, but the lounge on the second floor has been converted for Draco to sleep in. House meeting at 6pm local time tonight, to sort out plans for the holiday and cooking rotas and all that crap. Oh, and Seamus, Susan says that if you leave your dirty boots in the middle of the floor again this time, she'll curse your bits off."

There was general laughter at that, and the group broke up, Ron and Harry back to the skies, Hermione back to her novel. Ernie and Seamus headed into the tent to have a shower and unpack before the meeting.

X

Though it had arrived in the desert in Hermione's backpack, the 'tent' was really too luxurious to be called that. You could get quite a lot when you had a) magic and b) a practically unlimited budget, courtesy of the Potter millions. "Canvas mansion" would probably have been more appropriate. From the outside, it was merely a large white marquee, as one might see at a certain type of garden party. But inside was a whole other story.

It was built around a large marble staircase with dark wood bannisters in the middle, which stretched in a spiral up through all three floors. Ernie complained every year that all those stairs were overkill, and couldn't they just have a nice lift instead. So far, he had had nothing but raised eyebrows for his trouble. The top two floors had five bedrooms each, evenly spaced around the central landing, with an en-suite toilet with shower and bath attached to each. Hermione, Neville, Seamus, Susan and Colin were on the top floor, with Harry, Ron, Draco, Ernie and Hannah on the one below.

It was the ground floor, however, which was the most awe-inspiring. The double doors at one side, the only entrance, opened out onto a circular open space with the staircase in the centre. The floor was all parquet flooring, and the canvas sides of the tent had vanished to reveal shimmering ivory stone walls. There were a couple of ornate archways in these, leading to storage rooms. The main area was completely open plan, with a fairly extensive kitchen in the right hand semicircle, and a seating area to the left.

It was in this lounge which the Order were sitting, drinking ice-cold coke with shots of their tipple of choice, and talking about their plans for the next two weeks.

"We don't have to do the running thing _every_ day, do we Harry?" Ernie was whining again.

Harry rolled his eyes. "Well, Ron and I are going to do the perimeter run every morning at 5 am, it's a good way to check that all the wards are still up as well as keeping us fit. You're welcome to join us as and when you want."

Neville shuddered. "5 am is obscenely early, Harry."

Harry shrugged. "I like mornings."

There was a spate of rolled eyes. "Believe me, Harry, we know," said Susan. "Just don't you dare wake us up at 4 again for an 'emergency training session'. I haven't recovered from the last one, and it was three years ago!"

"It was fun, though! Anyway, let's move on. Hermione?"

She took out a notepad, to looks of resignation from everyone else, and began going through a list. "Meals – I've drawn up a rota, it's on the fridge door. Breakfast at ten, dinner at eight. Anyone wants extra food," they all turned to Ron, who raised his hands in mock surrender, "get it yourself from one of the cupboards. We should be pretty well stocked on everything, but if we run out come find me and we'll sort it. Obviously, tomorrow is a bit different. We're having the full roast dinner. I need everyone down here at noon to help with the cooking and the preparations, and we'll eat at about three. Any objections?"

There were none. They all knew better than to argue with Hermione in List Mode.

Looking satisfied, Hermione moved on. "As for activities, there's not much planned at the moment, so any ideas are welcome."

"Tonight is definitely Christmas decoration night," said Hannah firmly. There were nods of agreement.

"Tomorrow's also off," agreed Harry. "Hermione thinks she's managed to charm the telly to get the UK stations this year, so we're watching Doctor Who, and all the other Christmas specials. No arguments."

Draco looked at him as though he'd gone mad. Harry batted the expression away airily. "I'll explain later! Anyway, what do you lot want to do?"

"I'd quite like to go hiking," said Colin. "Some photos of this landscape would be fantastic. Maybe using one of the camels as a focus for the picture?"

Neville shuddered. "Take mine. As far away from me as possible, please." He and Seamus shared a look of disgust.

"Hiking sounds good." Hermione was already adding it to a new list.

"Quiddich," said Ron firmly. "With ten of us, we can have a proper 5-a-side game, set up nets and everything." Hermione rolled her eyes, but added it to the notebook anyway.

"Obviously, we'll have to do some training at some point, now that the election's only a few months away," said Harry. "But without the Room, I'm not sure what we can do except fight each other."

"I think the best thing to do would be practicing duelling with individual golems," mused Hermione. "Sev... I've sorted out Draco's weight problem," Ron sniggered, but Draco and Harry glared at him so she just kept going, "so I think it should be fairly simple to make fairly realistic duels. Obviously, they'll just attack without much finesse, since I can't do the advanced programming in such a short space of time."

"Lack of finesse is pretty much the definition of Death Eater," commented Draco.

Harry grinned at him. "So we should be OK there then. Hermione, Draco and I will spend Boxing day morning sorting that out then."

"To be honest," said Susan, "I was just really looking forward to sitting by the pool, tanning and reading crappy novels and magazines for a couple of weeks." Hannah nodded in agreement.

Hermione turned to Ron with a raised eyebrow. (Harry was strongly reminded of Snape, and resolved to have a word with her about that at some point, before promptly forgetting about it when Draco's hand somehow found its way onto his thigh.) "Have you done the pool yet, Ron?"

Ron sheepishly admitted that he'd been too caught up in flying with Harry to put up the pool and hot tub yet. It was agreed that he, Colin and Seamus would go outside and do that now, while the others began the Christmas decorations. With a sigh, drinks were abandoned for a while, and everyone went about their respective jobs,

As had become a sort of tradition for Christmas Eve, they had takeaway Chinese for dinner, bought in London by Neville for everyone and kept in stasis until they were needed. Draco looked at the greasy prawn crackers as though they had come from another planet, but once he'd tried one, he hogged the bag and refused to let go of them, much to his Harry's amusement. The so-called Leader of the Order then proceeded to steal as many of them as possible from Draco, until he got irritated enough to dump an entire pot of sweet and sour chicken on Harry's head, to the amusement of the others.

Christmas passed in a haze of turkey and vegetables. Hermione appeared to have brought enough food for forty people, and the fruitcake was so big that it had to be carried in by both Seamus and Colin. The lunch lasted well into the evening; in fact, it lasted until 6:15 when Harry suddenly realised the time and went haring across to the sitting area, dragging a reluctantly moaning Draco by the arm. Harry cast a series of wards and silencing charms as soon as he got to the seats, completely insulating the lounge from the remainder of the ground floor.

When the others had finally finished their meal and cleared away, they walked across to the seating area. Hermione began to unravel Harry's wards, but just as she was getting started they suddenly dropped. "Timed to end with the programme," explained Harry, as the credits rolled across the screen.

Harry and Draco were sitting entwined upon the settee, arms around one another, so close that they could have been conjoined twins. Ernie ignored the pair completely in favour of the bowl of nuts on the coffee table, Susan and Hannah let out a simultaneous "Awwwwww!" (they received identical glares from both boys), Colin and Seamus rolled their eyes, but Hermione and Ron looked thoughtful. They exchanged a long look. Hermione raised an eyebrow, then Ron nodded and they proceeded towards their respective seats.

X

It was the evening of the twenty-eighth of December, about five o'clock in the afternoon. Susan and Hannah were sunbathing by the large and luxurious pool which had been set up around the back of the tent, and Seamus was swimming in it. Neville and Colin had gone out for the day, riding the camels (much to Neville's disgust!) up the dunes in order to take some photographs, and Ernie was in his room having a siesta. Harry was outside, battling a pile of sand charmed to the form of Antonin Dolohov.

Draco was descending the spiral stair, towel in hand, about to go and join Seamus in the pool, when he was confronted by the rather intimidating sight of Ronald Weasley's broad and tall form leaning on the bannister, blocking his way and wearing a strangely pained expression. Next to him was Hermione Granger, looking slightly sheepish but resolute.

"We want a word, Malfoy." Weasley's expression hardened.

"Actually, Weasley, I'm on my way out, can it wait?" Draco did not appreciate being spoken to in that tone.

"No, it can't. Sit. Now." Weasley gestured to the lounge area.

"If you think I'm going to be spoken to like that, Weasel, you'd better-"

He was interrupted by Hermione, who had ducked under Weasley's outstretched arm and up a step in order to be level with both men. "Boys!" she said sharply. "Stop behaving like idiots! Enough testosterone!" She prodded Draco down the steps until he was on the ground floor next to Weasley, and she was standing over them looking down like a queen over her subjects.

"Now. Ron, stop trying to look intimidating, you just look constipated. Draco, we do need a word, it's about Harry, come and sit down and have some tea, both of you." She turned both of them around forcibly, and ushered them across to the sitting area.

Draco felt as though he was in the world's most intimidating job interview as he sat on his preferred chair, and Hermione and Weasley settled themselves on the settee opposite. Hermione summoned some tea from the kitchen and poured it sedately, an act strangely incongruous with the tense atmosphere.

"Now then," she said, settling back. "I apologise for Ron's rudeness, Draco, but we need to talk about Harry."

Draco was immediately defensive. "What about him?"

"Well, it's like this," she explained. "Harry's got no family but us, and for the past few years he's all the family we've got, too. We're rather protective of him."

Draco raised an eyebrow. Where was this going?

"Hear me out, Draco. Now, I know you're only pretending to date, and you've only been doing it for a month-"

"But Harry's not playing." Ron interrupted harshly. "What? Hermione, you would have used a hundred words instead of ten! Let's get this over with!"

She sat back with her arms crossed. "Fine. You talk then." Draco smirked a little at the pout.

Weasley continued. "It's like this, Draco. Harry's been my best friend since we were eleven, and I haven't spent much time out of his company since. I know him better than he knows himself – hell, I could have told you he was gay when we were twenty."

"How very touching," Draco sneered.

"Shut up. Anyway, you may be just pretending to like him, but I think he likes you for real. I've seen him in the company of both boyfriends he's had since he ditched that Russian bitch Olga two years ago."

"His ex-wife," Hermione supplied.

"Yes, I know," said Draco. "He told me before he told you lot that he was leaving her."

Weasley and Hermione shared a look. Shrugging, Weasley carried on where he had left off.

"Yes, anyway. They were both blonde and blue eyed. So you're definitely his type."

"Either that," commented Hermione, "or he was just finding substitutes for the person he actually liked subconsciously."

Both men looked at her blankly. "Hermione," Ron was exasperated. "Men don't think like that!"

She rolled her eyes. "Hence the word subconsciously! Ignore me though, carry on!"

Draco interrupted. "Whatever! So I'm his type – so what? Maybe that means he's just enjoying the playacting more than he would otherwise!"

Hermione put a hand on his knee. "Draco, we're his best friends. We've never seen him like this! He let you watch Doctor Who – no, he _dragged_ you to watch Doctor Who. He _never_ lets anyone disturb that – he set wards to keep the rest of us out for goodness' sake. And – well. Harry is so _playful_ around you. I haven't seen Harry do playful since first year!"

"So what we're saying, _mate,_ " the constipated look had returned to Weasley's face, "is that if you don't like him in the same way, if you are only playacting, you'd better make it clear to him now, before he gets too sucked in."

Draco was silent, in turmoil.

The gentle voice of Hermione drew him from his reverie. "But you're not playacting, are you? You like him too."

Weasley was looking murderous. "You'd better be sure before you open your mouth. Because if you mess with Harry, we'll hex your bollocks off. Or do it the old-fashioned way. With big sticks and fists."

Hermione swatted at him. " _Enough_ , Ron."

Draco spoke, pushing the words out in almost a whisper, unwilling to speak but forced but the circumstances. "Alright, alright, I... don't do talking about feelings and crap, that's for girls. But... I like Harry too. Quite a lot. I started out pretending, but..." He trailed off.

Hermione stood up, set her tea down carefully, then hugged him. "Well done, that's all we needed to hear. It's OK."

Weasley looked uncomfortable. "Yeah, um, good. Right. Well, basically, if you're lying or pretending or if you make him unhappy in any way we'll make you regret it, OK? Hermione knows the most inventive curses I've ever seen, and I may not be smart but I pack a good punch. So consider yourself warned."

Feeling very relieved that he didn't have to talk about _feelings_ any more, Draco rolled his eyes. "Yes, yes, I think we've established that. No hurting Harry. Fortunately for both of us, that's not on my agenda."

There was a pause. They all looked at each other.

"Good," repeated Weasley. "Now that we've got that sorted, I'm going to go and make a Quiddich pitch so we can play properly tomorrow. Come on, Hermione. You're going to transfigure some nets for me! Yours always hold for longer than mine." She rolled her eyes in apology at Draco, but allowed herself to be dragged outside.

Draco sipped his tea contemplatively.

"So what is?"

Hearing the voice, Draco startled and managed to cover himself in lukewarm Lapsang Souchong.

Harry appeared from behind the spiral stairs. His dyed red hair was even more mussed than usual, and he looked slightly flushed. He was biting his lip, something Draco had noticed that he only did when nervous.

Scourgifying himself hurriedly, Draco asked confusedly, "What's what?"

"On your agenda. If hurting me isn't, I mean. I'm glad to hear that, by the way."

He felt his face flush a deep red. "How much did you hear?"

"Well, I was just coming in to get a drink of water when I heard the three of you over here. I was just about to come and save you from the raving lunatics attempting to defend my honour when I heard something very interesting indeed."

Draco wondered idly whether it was possible to be any more embarrassed at this point. His face felt to hot that it might just melt off, and he was probably the colour of an overripe tomato - not a good look for a platinum blonde!

Harry sat down on the arm of the chair, whose current occupant was finding the floorboards immensely fascinating all of a sudden.

There was an awkward pause. As was his wont, Harry broke it. "So, you like me? As in, _like_ like?"

Draco snorted. "What are we, twelve?"

"Still. Were you lying?"

"No."

"Oh. Good." Harry turned and knelt down in front of Draco before snogging him soundly. "Because I _like_ like you quite a lot too."

All in all, thought Hermione, standing watching from the doorway, it had been a rather successful holiday. She only wished her own romantic dilemmas were so easily solved.


	12. Chapter 12

Three and a bit months later...

“No, Sean, no. It is not good enough to have the sales figures for last month on my desk by tomorrow. I'm currently on the plane to Oz. That's AUSTRALIA. So no I will not be in the office tomorrow morning, so those figures had better be emailed to me by the time I land. They're a week late already!”

As he slammed his mobile shut and laid it on the table in front of him, Seamus leaned back on his chair, shutting his eyes in frustration. Why were people so stupid? Surely his own PA should have noticed the large red capital letters on every calendar he owned, marking out this week, the second week of March, as a SALES CONFERENCE IN AUSTRALIA. He'd been very specific about it!

He was now only three hours from the end of his very long flight. He picked up the book he was reading – the Lord of the Rings, the only book long enough that he thought it might last the flight. Seamus had seen every in-flight movie currently on offer; what with his frequent business trips, he had had plenty of opportunity.

He rolled his eyes as there was yet another flowery speech by a soldier who really should have known better than to soliloquise in the middle of a battle, but battled through the dense language, hoping they'd land soon.

X

Seamus shut the file with a snap, nodding to his business partners. They had been supremely successful over the past few days, he felt, and he had in his hands the signed contracts for the backing to open five new O'Hara Stores supermarkets in Australia. He was pleased – they hadn't extended beyond Europe yet, and this would give him a whole new series of markets to explore.

Now for the other bit of business which had brought him to Oz. Seamus checked his watch – it was only midday, plenty of time for the long drive ahead. 

A few hours later found Seamus changed out of his formal business suit and into a red T-shirt and black jeans, driving in a rented Range Rover along a deserted, dusty highway. It was fairly warm, but not uncomfortably so. He decided that March was a good time to visit this country: having heard horror stories of overwhelming weather from his colleagues when he had announced this trip, he was rather glad to find them wrong. It was just turning to autumn, here, and the leaves were just beginning to change, providing a gorgeous darker counterpoint to the golden road.

Seamus estimated himself to be at least a couple of hours from the nearest civilisation. In fact, the only sign that there was anyone else in the country at all came in the form of the occasional houses which he saw on the side of the road. 

When the GPS indicated that he should turn into the driveway of one of these houses, he pulled up at the side of the road just before the turning and paused to survey it. The house itself looked like something out of a period novel: it was plain and whitewashed, with red-painted beams criss-crossing its front, and a long porch. A sign at the start of the drive declared “The Albus Dumbledore Institute for Magical Education”.

Seamus raised his eyebrows. Hermione hadn't mentioned that. But he was pretty sure that this matched the directions she'd given otherwise. Warily, he cast a glamour to conceal his features, though it would hardly be much use if he was actually here to meet who he thought he was here to meet, then got out of the care and walked up to the house, giving a sharp rap on the door as he did so.

“Yeh?” came a voice from inside. Seamus smiled – it was familiar, but it had been a while since he'd heard it.

“I'm here on behalf of a mutual friend, Hagrid. May I come in?”

The door opened to reveal the half-giant, bending awkwardly to fit his head through the door. He was pointing a very long wand at Seamus with a mistrustful look. “What friend? Who're you?”

“Harry Potter. My name is Seamus Finnegan, I was in your Care of Magical Creatures class more years ago than I care to remeber.”

The large man's face broke out into a smile. “Aye, it's been a while. Come in, come in!”

Seamus stepped through the doorway... and stopped, staring. He was in an enormous replica of the Hogwarts entrance hall, moving staircases and all. He could see at least seven levels stretching upwards, with students walking around, lauging and chatting and carrying books, presumably between classes. They were all wearing maroon robes, most of them open, with shorts and T-shirts or dresses underneath. So much for Hogwarts' dress code! “This is surreal!” Seamus muttered.

Hagrid seemed not to hear that particular comment. “Fantastic, innit? They wanted to feel more homey in the beginning, then it were convenient to keep. C'mon, I'll take you to the Headmistress.”

Seamus was vaguely disappointed to find that beyond the entrance hall, the Hogwarts parallels failed. The headmistress' office was a light, airy room at the end of a long panelled corridor. When they reached the door, Hagrid knocked, then, hearing no response poked his head round the door. 

“She's not here, must be still teaching. You sit, and I'll go find her.” Hagrid pushed Seamus into one of the armchairs in front of the desk then left the room, the door swinging shut behind him with a bang which made the Irishman jump.

He looked around the room. There were several moving portraits on the walls: one he recognised as Albus Dumbledore, but the others of witches and wizards he didn't know. He nodded to the ex-headmaster, receiving a smile in return.

Seamus turned as the door opened behind him, and Minerva McGonagall entered. He stood, and shook the proffered hand. 

“Mr. Finnegan, my apologies for keeping you.” She gestured him to return to his chair, then settled herself in the one opposite. 

“It's not a problem, Professor.”

“Minerva, please, it's been a decade since I was your professor.”

“Minerva, then. Please call me Seamus.”

“Seamus. I understand that you're here from the Order – I apologise for having to ask this, but could you please tell me the pass-phrase?”  
Seamus smiled. “Hermione Granger says “hello”, and asks you to remember Shakespeare's words: 

O, never say that I was false of heart,  
Though absence seemed my flame to qualify.”  
Minerva nodded, and replied:

“That is my home of love; if I have ranged,  
Like him that travels I return again.”

Seamus relaxed a little in his chair. “Thank Merlin, I'm in the right place. I was so shocked when I saw the school – Hermione didn't warn me about that, just said you were set up in a house at this address. You've certainly extended it!”

Minerva smiled. “Indeed. We'd been here a couple of years when we realised how little provision there is in Australia for Magical Education. Most children learn at home in the evenings from personal tutors, while attending Muggle schools during the day. That's good, in that the Muggle and Wizarding worlds are very intermixed, but there's a problem for Muggleborn students. There simply aren't enough teachers roving around looking for signs of magic in young children, as we became aware of when... well, anyway. So we set up a school for eight to eighteen year old wizards, mainly Muggleborn, but some half and pureblooded too.”

Seamus frowned. “Eight?”

“We had one particular eight year old, a special case, so we felt that in order for her to have interactions with children the same age, we should open the doors to other younger students. Currently, there are five eight to ten year olds, and about fifteen students in each of the other seven year groups, those you'd recognise as the 'Hogwarts years'. Filius, Hagrid and I can pretty much cover the basics of all the subjects, along with several local teachers we've recruited over the years. Of course, it's nothing like as grand as Hogwarts, but it suits us. But you didn't come here to discuss the Institute, however proud of it I am. I presume there have been developments in the UK?”

“Yes, actually. We're planning for the Final Battle, Mark II.”

Minerva raised an eyebrow. “Well, you'd better explain further.”

They began to talk shop.

X

As Seamus was leaving the office a couple of hours later, Minerva stopped him in the doorway with a light touch on the shoulder. “I presume that the next time I can expect to see Hermione is in battle?”

Seamus looked grim. “Probably. She can't get away from the country at the moment”

Minerva looked undecided for a moment, then resolute. “She ought to... well..” she muttered to herself. Then she looked at Seamus, straight in the eye. “Would you please deliver a letter to her for me? It's nothing to do with the war effort, just personal.”

Seamus looked curious. “Of course.”

“I'll have someone drop it off at your hotel this evening,” she said. 

As he sat on the plane home, looking at the heavy sealed envelope, address left blank for security reasons, he felt a sudden urge to open it. What could be so important that Minerva would need to send it urgently? Delivered by one of the Australian teachers on a flying motorbike, indeed! That must be one interesting letter.

He shoved the envelope down the side of his carry-on luggage. Seamus Finnegan was a principled man, he liked to believe. And that he wanted to fulfil his obligation to the pretty blonde Australian who had arrived at his hotel to deliver it didn't hurt either.

X

Severus Snape surveyed himself in the mirror. He smoothed his long black robes, considering. He was meeting Helena again tonight... he absolutely did not feel his heart jump a little at the thought.

Lucius swanned into the room behind him. “Thinking about your Muggle, Severus?”

“Well,” Severus feigned a leer, “she does make a very good shag at the end of a long day.” He tried to suppress his body's instant reaction to the thought of sex with Helena – not that they'd actually had any. He enjoyed spending time with her too much to want to press the issue.

Lucius was smirking, the trademark Malfoy expression. “That's all Muggles are good for, really, isn't it?”

“Possibly not something to put on the campaign literature,” Severus remarked, before sweeping past his friend and into the ballroom of Malfoy Manor, where the rest of the Death Eaters' inner circle waited, standing in a semicircle around a black throne on what used to be the dancefloor. He took his place next to Bellatrix, leaving a gap for Lucius on his other side. He exchanged nods with Dolohov and Avery. There was no need for masks, any more.

With the sudden crack of apparition, the Dark Lord appeared in the centre of the semi-circle, standing by the throne. He sat, then hissed at them:

“Good evening, my friends.” 

Lucius was first up for interrogation. “Your campaign proceeds well?”

“Yes, my lord. I am on course to win in June, with little left to do but maintain current momentum.”

“Yet you had to have your son dallying with a Muggle male in order for this to happen...”

Lucius made a face. “It disgusts me, my lord, but there is no doubting that it has increased my popularity ratings in the four months they have been together. Draco assures me that he will take great pleasure in killing the boy as soon as the election is won.”

Voldemort nodded. “Good, good.” Then, with a sudden flick of his wand, he turned to Snape, and said clearly “Crucio.”

Severus fell to the ground, every nerve feeling as though it were on fire. He screamed – Voldemort liked hearing screams – not that he was thinking that, there was not time to think, just pain pain pain...

Then it stopped. Shakily, he stood.

“Speaking of dalliances with Muggles, Severus, I have heard of yours.”

“My lord, I apologise, I was just using her, I did not mean...”

“Stop lying to me, Severus.”

“My lord?”

“I know that she is a witch. You and I will now discuss why you did not share this information with me and your brethren.”

He turned to the other Death Eaters. “Leave.”

Through the haze of panic which had descended on him, Severus wondered idly why he wasn't dead yet. And how had Voldemort known? And what could he say to save them both?

The Dark Lord seated himself in the chair. “Kneel and explain yourself,” he told Severus imperiously.

“My lord, I humbly beg your pardon with my sincerest apologies for attempting to deceive you. I should have known that your lordship is omniscient and omnipotent and cannot be deceived.” 

“Enough flattery, Severus. Explain.” Voldemort sounded slightly mollified, the hiss slightly less pronounced, nonetheless.

“We met at the Malfoy ball, as you know, my lord. Her name is Helena Andrews. At first she appeared to be a Muggle, but when I used legilimency on her, she was revealed immediately as a half-blood, whose wizard mother died soon after her birth, leaving her living in the Muggle world. She learned magic at the Pure Spring Academy in the United States, but returned to Britain several years ago.”

“That does not explain why you did not inform me immediately that she was a witch.”

“My lord, I sincerely apologise. At first I was trying to ascertain her motivation in living in the Muggle world, though she has extremely strong magic. I understand that her Muggle family disowned her upon discovering her powers, and she was spurned by her wizarding relations upon her return to Britain, so she rejected the magical world too, her ambition taking her to the Muggle government. She had no idea that Malfoy was a wizard. She is full of anger, my lord. I have sought to turn her to our way of thinking before I presented her to you, and I believe that I am succeeding in showing her that the true path to light is through you.”

Severus paused. He was very glad of his Occlumency shields in that moment, since he had been making the entire story up on the spot, his only aim to say whatever would keep both himself and Helena alive for as long as possible. His blood ran cold when he realised what exactly he'd said, and suddenly realised the logical outcome of his last speech – shit shit shit, please don't let Voldemort notice.

Voldemort being Voldemort, such entreaties, even unspoken, never worked.

“Bring her to me. I would assess her. If she has such skill and anger as you say, perhaps we can overlook her deficiency in blood.”


	13. Chapter 13

Hermione Granger liked a good cup of tea. In fact, it was only in tea-making that she indulged her truly obsessive tendencies and endeavoured every time to make the perfect cuppa. Not that she'd ever demean the drink with such an imprecise and menial term, of course.

Hermione didn't drink English Breakfast, considering it pigswill for the uninitiated. No, it had to be Earl Grey, or fruit tea, or Lady Grey in the summer. It also had to be strong and piping hot. 

Today was a special occasion, however. It had been a long, hard day, having to deal with irate constituents and idiotic peers alike. Today was definitely a day for Lapsang Souchong. It was definitely a tea for connoisseurs, strong and smoky. Some people said it smelled like salami, but to her it was the scent of relaxation after a particularly trying day. 

She was sitting on her settee, the latest BBC drama on the television, about to take her first sip of the mug of this wondrous concoction she had just prepared when the doorbell rang. Repeatedly.

Sighing, she put down the mug on the coffee table and went to answer it. 

She opened the door and caught one sight of Severus' face before she felt a sudden assault on her mind. It was like a hammer banging on her temples, a demon tearing her brain apart, like white-hot pokers through her eyes. She had thought she had headaches through occlumency before, but they were nothing, nothing compared to this. 

Hermione was vaguely aware that she was screaming, but she couldn't focus on that, not when all her energy was focused on protecting her mind... do not let him in, do not let him in....

Then all at once, it stopped. She collapsed backwards, but felt herself caught by strong arms before she hit the floor. Hermione had a vague sense of someone pouring liquid into her lips, then it all went black.

X

When Hermione awoke, her head was feeling human again. However, when she tried to move, she found herself in a full body bind, seated on the sofa. Severus Snape was sitting in the chair across from her, staring impassively.

Oh god, she thought. It's over. I'm going to die. Rather than betraying that in her gaze, however, she focused on transmitting how much she hated him. Better to go down fighting.

“I'm truly sorry that I had to do that to you. But the Dark Lord has decided that he wants to meet you, and I had to see whether you could stand up to the pain his Occlumentic attacks.”

She shivered. “What, so you're handing me over to him now?”

“No. If I just handed you over, we'd both be dead in seconds! I don't know how, but he's found out that you're a witch. He doesn't approve of his death eaters consorting with mudbloods. At least if you were muggle I could just persuade him I was using you for sex.”

She goggled. “You're a loyal follower! Why are you 'consorting with me anyway?”

“I note that you now appear to know precisely who I am, including that I am a Death Eater, when only last week you appeared never to have heard of the Dark Lord or his minions.”

She glared even more, but could think of nothing to say to that.

“From which I can only conclude that you are part of the 'Resistance' movement, and have been spending time with me on the orders of your leaders, probably Harry Potter and his cronies, and have no real feelings for me at all.”

Her glare abated, to be replaced with a blank look.

“Well, any feelings you may or may not have had are immaterial now.” He was speaking almost on autopilot. He sounded defeated, almost dead. “I'm going to trust you now, Helena. If that's even your real name. Because I have no choice. The only way that I'm going to get through the next week alive is with your co-operation, when you come with me to the Dark Lord. So I'm going to tell you the truth.”

It was at this point that Hermione noticed that there was a pensive on her coffee table.

“I'm not a loyal Death Eater. I have never been one.”

Hermione felt her hand become free, but she still had no control over it. Snape was levitating it towards the pensive. She said nothing – there was nothing to say any more.

Then, the tip of her finger touched the surface of the liquid.


	14. Chapter 14

Hermione was quite surprised at how calm she was. But there was nothing to be done now, since this was Snape's memory and there would be no way to escape it until it had run its course or he saw fit to remove her. However, she could do her best to verify what she was seeing. She cast a non-verbal verification charm and the whole scene in front of her glowed blue, indicating that the memory was clear and untampered with. Or, in this case, scenes. A series of snippets were passing in front of her eyes with such speed that she could hardly keep track, but all were bathed in the blue incandescence. 

As each memory changed, in the air in front of her, glowing blue letters appeared:

A TRUE MEMORY OF SEVERUS TOBIAS SNAPE, DECEMBER 25TH 1965.  
A little black-haired boy was cowering in a corner, as his father drank whiskey from the bottle in one hand, and whacked his wife around the face with the other. “Where's your bloody magic now!?” he bellowed. Hermione winced.

A TRUE MEMORY OF SEVERUS TOBIAS SNAPE, MARCH 6TH 1967.  
The boy was older now, greasy hair long and unkempt. He found a box of books in the attic, detailing spells of all kinds, staring at them in wonderment, beginning to read and read and read. The cowed look on his face slowly turned to one of determination. Hermione felt herself smiling in sympathy – her reaction to books had always been the same: to learn as much as possible in as short a time as possible.

A TRUE MEMORY OF SEVERUS TOBIAS SNAPE, AUGUST 15TH 1971.  
The boy, older now but still gangly and greasy, with the same determined expression. He was holding a Hogwarts letter in his hand, grinning as he showed it to his mother, who smiled weakly, all the fight beaten out of her years ago. The father entered, home from work early, heard the word magic and bellowed like a rampaging bull, hitting and hitting and hitting without remorse. 

Hermione looked up at the older version of that boy, who looked more fragile than she had ever seen him. Impulsively, she hugged him tightly, trying, trying to help move the pain away. Death Eater or no, no one deserved that. 

He spoke into her hair, voice muffled by the straight brown strands. It was broken, heartfelt. “My father killed my mother that night, for the crime of bearing a magical child. He was taken to muggle prison, and I would have ended up in care if Minerva hadn't come for me. She took me to Hogwarts early, and became the closest thing to family I've ever known.”

“I'm so, so, sorry.”

He stood up straighter, pushing her away slightly. “You need to see this bit.”

Hermione straightened, and looked around. The scene had settled. 

Severus appeared beside her. With a slightly apologetic look, Hermione removed her wand from her pocket and moved it in a circular motion in front of her, casting a non-verbal verification charm. 

A TRUE MEMORY OF SEVERUS TOBIAS SNAPE, JUNE 1ST 1975.

They were in Minerva McGonnagal's classroom, Headmaster Dumbledore sitting at her desk and a teenage Severus standing in front of it. McGonnagal herself was pacing about around them.

“I cannot believe that you're asking him to do this, Albus. It's madness! It's child abuse!” Her thick Scottish brogue echoed through the room.

Teenage Severus stiffened noticeably at that last. She stopped, and looked him in the eye. “You know that I don't mean that, really. I love you as my own, you know that.”

There was a pause, then Teenage Severus nodded gravely. “Thank you, Minerva. I do appreciate everything you've done for me.”

“An I love you too wouldn't go amiss occasionally, you know,” she mock-huffed at him, but enveloped him in a hug anyway, which he returned awkwardly. “Don't worry,” she said. “I won't make you say it.” Severus was blushing profusely.

Dumbledore was clearly rather irritated at having the attention off him. He cleared his throat.

“Severus, what do you think? I'm worried about this Voldemort, as he's now styling himself. I do need a spy in the ranks, and what with your perfect placement in Slytherin and the Occlumency which I taught you last summer, no one can do it better than you. It's the sixth year where he tends to start recruiting, and your friend Malfoy has already started trying with you. All you have to do is accept, and report to me.”

“All!” McGonnagal was off again. “Honestly Albus, you make it sound like a walk in the park! This Voldemort figure's been gathering power, he's dangerous. It could all go horribly wrong, I don't trust him!”

Dumbledore rolled his eyes. Hermione, who had never seen him do so before, thought it made him look rather young. How odd, she thought. She'd never thought of Dumbledore as young before, but he could only be about 80 here, not old for a wizard at all. “No one trusts him, Minerva, that's rather the point. It's hard to set yourself up as a Dark Lord if everyone trusts you. On the other hand, that makes a very good spy.” He turned back to the boy in front of him.

The teenage Severus looked up. “I'll do it.”

McGonnagal sighed, looking anguished but resigned. Dumbledore looked pleased, Teenage Severus looked rather proud. Next to Hermione, the older Severus' face was a blank, white mask.

The scene changed again:

A TRUE MEMORY OF SEVERUS TOBIAS SNAPE, NOVEMBER 1ST 1982.

Severus came into the Great Hall, where there was a feast going on to celebrate the purported death of Voldemort at the hands of the infant Harry Potter. Dumbledore, who had been sitting at the head of the table chatting to Flitwick, caught his eye, and together they proceeded to exit into the small room behind the teachers' table, where the champions had met after the Tri-Wizard Tournament in Hermione's fourth year. 

“No sign of anything at Godric's Hollow or any of the usual places,” said Severus. “But that doesn't mean he's really dead. The mark remains.”

He rolled up his sleeve to show the headmaster the blemish on his arm, dark and ugly against his pale skin.  
Dumbledore brushed his hand across it slowly, sadly. “Thank you, Severus. I know that this was a great sacrifice, and that you made it for the side of light may turn out to be fantastically important.”

Severus sneered, pulling away his arm. “Be that as it may, Headmaster, the fact remains that the Potter brat, child of his bullying bastard father, has apparently saved the world and no-one but you or I knows different.”

“So you will just have to keep playing the evil Potions Master until he returns. And try and be nice to Harry, for his mother's sake. She was your friend.”

“Until she fell in love with that Potter bastard.”

“I don't think his heritage was ever in question, Severus. Remember, then, the prophecy.”

Severus sniffed. “Want me to swear an unbreakable vow not to harm the brat, or something?” It was then that Hermione remembered that this Severus could not be much older than twenty-one, so being flippant had not yet been beaten out of him by years of cynicism. There was still a slight sparkle in those determined black eyes.

Dumbledore smiled happily, apparently completely unaware that Severus had been joking. “What a fantastic idea! Poppy!” He stuck his head around the door and called the Matron in with them.

“I was joking, Albus,” said Severus incredulously.

“Ah, well, better safe than sorry!” Dumbledore appeared to be manically cheerful.

Poppy Pomfrey looked faintly irritated at having her dinner disturbed, but agreed to act as Bonder.

Hermione watched, as, Younger Severus still looking slightly incredulous, the two men knelt and she spoke the spell to bind their promises. 

“I swear,” said Severus, “that I will help the cause of the light until Lord Voldemort is finally defeated, and that I will aid Harry Potter in his endeavours to do this to the best of my ability and in the way that I think best, and that I will not do anything to jeopardise his destiny in any way.”

The violet threads around their hands tightened, indicating that the promise had been undertaken. Severus could not break it without dying on the spot.

The blue glow of Hermione's verification spell still suffused the room, indicating that this was a true memory.

Hermione was gobsmacked, but there was no real time to process that before the scene changed again. She cast the verification spell once more, more to get an idea of timing than because she no longer believed the man next to her.

A TRUE MEMORY OF SEVERUS TOBIAS SNAPE, NOVEMBER 22ND 1995.

They had skipped just over fifteen years, and this was his memory from a night near the middle of her sixth year at Hogwarts. The year Dumbledore died, and Voldemort took over.

Now satisfied of its veracity, she nodded at Snape, who had paused the moment for her to take stock. He still looked impassive.

The Headmaster's office at Hogwarts. She hadn't really studied it before – in school she'd never been called there, so the only time she'd been in was a quick run with Minerva after the battle, to collect the most important of Dumbledore's artefacts before the Death Eaters descended.

Those artefacts were back in place, now. Golden contraptions whirring on the desk and on shelves, little pendulums swinging in mid-air, apparently without being pushed. Hermione had the sudden incongruous thought that a Muggle physicist would have a field day in here, with all the machines in eternal, constant motion. 

His younger self was sitting in the chair in front of Dumbledore's desk, looking almost the same. The black robes and greasy hair did not appear to have changed in style, nor the rigidly straight back or the almost palpable tension he was exuding. Hermione couldn't really tell any more which one was the more tense – she thought the one in the chair had it, but only by a whisker.

He was starting to speak, now, to Dumbledore, who was in his chair, studying some papers with such care that he was giving the impression of deliberately not looking at Snape.

“Headmaster, I believe I have discovered Malfoy's purpose.”

“Really?” the Headmaster looked remarkably disinterested, still studying the papers with irritating officiousness.

“Yes. I spoke to the Dark Lord, convinced him that the attack on Miss Bell in October was making you suspicious, and that you were knew that Draco was behind it.”

“And?”

“He told me that the real target was you, Headmaster. Draco is trying to kill you. I think that the Dark Lord expects him to fail, however.”

“Unsurprising, really. I expect him to fail.”

There was a slight curl of the lip from the younger Severus. Hermione looked across and found an identical one on the face of the older.

“You seem remarkably sanguine for someone who's just been informed that his student is trying to kill you,” younger Snape was drawling.

“Well, yes. Since I was expecting that response, and I'm going to die anyway, it hardly seems to matter.”

Hermione and younger Severus gasped in unison. The older Severus just winced.

“Excuse me?”

“I'm going to die. My hand, the curse I accidentally acquired with the Riddle ring, when I still thought that there might be horcruxes?” He pulled his right sleeve up to above the elbow. There was a weird juxtaposition, the black flesh of his dead hand with the ring, which then segued into pink, healthy flesh.

“You said that you'd managed to contain it in one hand! That there was no need to worry, refused to let me examine...”

“I may have needed to stretch the truth, a little.”

Younger Snape was shaking now. “But... why? Have you been to St. Mungo's, the Hospital Wing... can I do anything? My dark arts books, I can brew... you can't die!”

Dumbledore waved his hand across his face, and suddenly the glamour dropped. Rather than the white haired, pink-cheeked old man they had been seeing, there was a wizened, grey-faced, elderly man. The black on his hand extended further up the arm than it had before, almost to the shoulder. The Headmaster seemed to have aged about a hundred years instantaneously.

“It's the Morte Corpo Mente curse, Severus.”

The younger Severus had slumped back in his chair with a sigh, but it was the elder's face on which Hermione was fixed. It was as pale as paper, even paler than usual, and his eyes were shut as though in a great pain. He began to whisper, for Hermione's benefit, without opening his eyes.

“The Morte Corpo Mente curse, developed by Grindelwald somewhere towards the end of what you would call the Second World War.” Severus opened his eyes, staring into Hermione's. “You will not have come across it, Helena. It's very, very dark. Grindelwald had a Muggle prisoner with the disease Alzheimers, which wizards are usually immune to. He managed to isolate the part of the brain which was warped, and created a potion to mimic the effects. Of course, he added his own, evil touch – as the mind of anyone whose skin touched the potion began to deteriorate, so would their flesh. Body and mind, Corpo et Mente. Dying together. There's no cure. The full formula has never been discovered, as it vanishes completely once absorbed even a little. Except that Voldemort must have figured it out. It usually takes about eighteen months to progress to death.”

Hermione looked back at Dumbledore. Dear Merlin. She took a step towards Severus, instinctive rather than planned. They observed the scene together.

Dumbledore looked sanguine, the younger Severus looked as though he were the prospective corpse.

“That's enough from there for now, I believe,” said Severus. The scene suddenly changed, to a windy evening. When Hermione cast her verification charm, she was informed by the blue lettering that this was 

A TRUE MEMORY OF SEVERUS TOBIAS SNAPE, DECEMBER 29TH 1995.

The Severus Snape was sitting by the fire drinking what looked like Firewhiskey when Narcissa Malfoy and Bellatrix Black came whirling in to the room in a flash of snow and icy wind. 

“Severus! I had nowhere else to turn... he's tasked Draco with the impossible...”

Hermione watched as Severus feigned no knowledge of Draco's task, saw Bellatrix's suspicion, Narcissa's desperation. In that moment she felt sorry for all three of them: Severus, hiding what he was, Narcissa, trying to save her son, and Bellatrix, mind destroyed by Azkaban and the ravages of madness.

Hermione watched the second Unbreakable Vow she had seen in these memories. She turned to the man beside her and hugged him tightly, as she heard him coerced into vowing to kill Albus Dumbledore.

Through her tears, Hermione was vaguely aware that they had left the pensive, and that she was now back in her own flat, sitting on the settee and clutching Severus.

He conjured a handkerchief and dabbed at her face gently, smiling a little, though he too looked pained. “I take it you believe me, then?”

She glared. “Of course I do! How Dumbledore could make you do that, I don't know! I always knew he was a scheming bastard, but... maybe his mind was going from the curse, how could he make you kill him....”

“So, we need to decide what to do about the Dark Lord next week.” He was back to business now.

Hermione dried her tears with the handkerchief and sat up. “There are some people who need to see this first. I'm sorry if it makes you uncomfortable, but there is at least one person who needs to see this pensive.”

He bowed his head. “I suppose it is inevitable. Go.”

Hermione ran to her dresser, pulled out his emergency mobile phone. It was a Tesco Pay-as-you-go, and she'd never needed to use it before, but she knew the number off by heart. She dialled it, hands shaking.

“Harry? It's...” she glanced at Severus. “...Helena. I need you to come round to my flat, right now. But you have to promise, when you get here, to hear me out before you go all guns blazing. Yes, bring him too. No, not enough of an emergency for apparition, we do want to keep our cover intact after this. Broom would probably be best. Twenty minutes, then.”

She put down the phone on the hook and turned to Severus. He was looking resigned.

“So,” she said weakly. “I guess we've got twenty minutes to wait then. I do have one question.”

He raised an eyebrow. “Yes?”

“How did you figure out that I'm part of the resistance? We're meant to be secret.”

“After our fourth date, I checked up on your back story. There's no Helena Andrews of your age on the Ministry registers, which list all magical children born in the UK, as you said you were.” She winced, she'd been hoping he wouldn't look at that.

“Also, there's no record of any Helena Andrews attending the Salem Academy in the USA, and there's not even any record of you ever entering or leaving the country through either muggle or magical means. Your muggle persona has apparently lived in England all her life, never been abroad. I presume that's a fabrication, too, though I have to admit it's much better quality. If I hadn't noted the legilimency, I'd never have seen that you're a witch.

“That told me clearly that Helena Andrews didn't exist, so you must have lied about your backstory. However, since I approached you at the ball, not the other way around, you must have known who I was. That means that you knew who I was, in order that you knew that you had to lie to me to hide your identity. The fact that you knew who I was implies that you grew up in the UK, and that you wanted to hide so much implies that you are hiding in the Muggle world, rather than just living, a fact backed up since you refuse to apparate or portkey. Hence, you are part of the resistance against the Dark Lord, and that was probably Harry Potter on the phone.”

She raised an eyebrow at him. “You're a right Sherlock Holmes, you know that?”

He laughed. “Not really, I've just had four months to think about it. I don't think any Death Eater but me has enough contacts in both the Muggle and Wizarding world to figure it out, though, so you should be safe.”

She sighed, and went to sit next to him on the settee. “That's a relief.”

“I do have one question, though.”

Hermione tensed. There could only really be one thing coming, and this was not going to be pretty.

“Who are you?”

She turned and looked at him. “Before I answer, I want you to know that although I started dating you because I was too scared not to, I really, really, like you, and this evening has only confirmed for me that I want to continue this, regardless of the future. Provided we both survive the next week, of course.”

“I... rather feel the same way,” he said haltingly. “I've bared all my secrets to you this evening, that's the last. But what's yours? How bad can this answer be?”

She bit her lip. “In a former life, you knew me as Hermione Granger.”


	15. Chapter 15

Severus stood up, not looking at her. “Your tea's gone cold. I'd like a cup. Potter probably will too. I'll go and make one.”

Without so much as glancing at her stricken figure, he walked into the kitchen. There was the sound of a thump, then of the clattering of crockery and the hissing of the kettle. Hermione made no move to follow him, but instead returned to her place on the corner of the settee, curling her feet up underneath her and picking up her stone cold tea, trying not to cry.

X

The thump Hermione had heard was Severus banging his fist painfully against her granite worktop. A student! How dare she be that precocious know-it-all brat? Why? What had happened to the beautiful woman he'd been seeing in his head to the extent that the Dark Lord had somehow discovered her, the woman of his dreams?

And then he paused, and a little voice inside his head responded to the questions. She's sitting outside this door, clutching a cold cup of tea... she's the same woman, she just didn't tell you her name... it's been a long, long time since she was your student...

And his brain responded: She's not the same!! It's not just her name she hid, it's her entire personal history!

But you already knew that Helena Andrews didn't exist. Do you object to the fact that she's Hermione Granger, or that she's not Helena Andrews?

Faced with such a blunt question from his conscience, Severus had to admit that the majority of his anger was at the fact that the woman he'd thought he'd been dating definitely didn't exist. Before it had been a sort of nebulous idea... in his heart of hearts he'd been hoping that she'd have some sort of explanation. Helena was the only part of his life where he allowed such fantasy. Oh damn, did he have to call her Hermione now? It didn't exactly trip off the tongue, not when that tongue was used to whispering “Helena...”

No, he hadn't thought about Hermione Granger in years. There was a vague impression of bushy hair and a waving hand, next to Potter of course. Always Potter...

That reminded him suddenly that Potter and Weasley would probably be arriving within the next few minutes, and he'd promised tea. Severus looked down to realise that he'd been aimlessly moving plates from one side of the draining board to the other as he thought. Shaking his head, he filled the kettle, then firked around in a few cupboards for some cups. He found only mugs, so placed a few mugs on a tray. Unfortunately, the colour was horrendous, but there were certain rules about charming others' property in their own homes.

Somewhere between the living room and the pouring of the tea into the sensible metallic teapot, Severus realised that he'd come to a decision. He lov- really liked- Helena, dammnit, Hermione – and needed her co-operation to survive the next few days. So, he was going to tell her that. 

Being a Gryffindor, she'd probably want some sort of public display of affection. And that might be a good way of announcing his intentions to her friends at the same time.

X

To Hermione, it seemed like only seconds after Severus retreated to the kitchen that there was a vehement banging on the door. She stood up to open the door, and found Harry and Draco behind it, looking panicked. 

Seeing her stricken visage, Harry barged past her into the flat. “What's wrong, Hermione, what's wrong? Has Snape attacked you? Are you compromised? Do you need to go into hiding? Don't worry, I can have you squirreled away in South America within twenty four hours...”

Draco laid a hand on his arm, and Harry immediately fell quiet. “I don't think it's likely that Uncle Severus is going to be a threat to Hermione.”

Harry rounded on him. “How are you so sure?”

“He's made tea.”

Draco pointed over Harry's shoulder, where, sure enough, Severus Snape had just entered Hermione's sitting room carrying a hot pink tray with four steaming mugs of Earl Grey. 

The sight was so incongruous that Hermione had to fall about laughing. She stopped suddenly, realising whom she was laughing at and that they hadn't actually discussed anything yet. Severus met her eyes and they exchanged a long look.

He placed the tray down on the coffee table, strode across the lounge, and kissed her. She sighed with relief. 

“Look, Hel- Herm- Gran- I'm just going to call you H, alright?” She laughed in pure joy, acquiescing. “We were both playing roles when we met, but somehow out of that has grown something real. You are the most brilliant and beautiful woman I've ever met and I'd be a fool to castigate you for only doing your best to protect yourself when you thought I was actually a Death Eater. I'm not reconciled to the fact that you were my student – I just can't seem to fit the images together, and I'm not even going to try because we have more important things to deal with at the moment. However, you are going to give me a full account of how you spent the last few years. And how you survived. And-” he appeared to notice the two men behind her for the first time “-why, when I was expecting Potter and the youngest Weasley male, my godson and his Premiership footballer boyfriend are standing in your flat?”

X

It was an hour later, and they were all sitting around Hermione's coffee table, Draco and Harry lounging together on the settee, Severus and Hermione in an armchair each. While Draco and Harry explored the pensive, Hermione had explained her grandplan to Severus, who had questioned her meticulously on every detail as she spoke, explaining her methods for forging documentation, her contacts both worlds, and the plot to kill Voldemort on election night.

Severus was staring at Hermione in awe. “H, you are brilliant. You've managed to hide the Wizarding World's most wanted people in plain sight, and when I stood three feet away from Harry Potter I didn't recognise him. And you've got a fairly viable plan to kill the Him. You're amazing.”

Harry coughed lightly. “Hey, we were there too! Besides, I think we need to talk about you.”

He sat up straighter in his chair and put on what Hermione thought of as his “General” voice. “I've seen the memories, done the spells, but I'm sure that you could have found a way around that – we know that you're a genius spy. I don't mean to offend, but I need more proof.”

Severus nodded. “I would think less of you if you did not. I-”

“Uncle Severus.” Draco, who had been remarkably quiet for the whole evening so far, interrupted. Hermione and Harry turned to his quzzically. Draco said nothing further, just paused looked at his godfather without speaking. 

Severus took out his wand and pointed it at Draco. Harry was about to draw his own wand to defend his lover, but Draco simply laid a hand on his arm, and he quieted. Hermione marvelled – she hadn't thought that anyone could stop Harry once he was in protective mode. However, all that Severus did was say quietly, “I release you from your vow.” Blue light enclosed both of them, and Hermione gasped as she recognised an Unbreakable Vow being lifted.

Draco sighed and slumped back against Harry. “Why you couldn't have done that as soon as you saw me in the flat, Uncle Sev, I don't know! I've been in fear of my life for the past hour, and not even able to say anything!”

Severus shrugged. “Don't call me Sev. I trusted you to have enough sense not to say anything or make any move. And your silence was rather refreshing.” He smirked, then glancing at Hermione added, “Besides, I was a little distracted.” Hermione blushed a deep red, making him smirk even more.

Draco “I'll call you Uncle Sevvie then. Anyway. Harry, Uncle Sevviekins here is on our side, and always has been.”

Harry goggled. “How – what – you knew – and didn't say – you – WHAT?”

“I was the one that the Flobberworm tasked with killing Dumbledore to start with, remember? I was on the tower that night. I was pointing the wand at him but I – I couldn't – he was so –” Draco shuddered, and turned towards Harry's chest. The other man put his arms around him, providing shelter, and comfort as he could.

Draco took a deep breath and continued in a juddering voice. “Then Severus came running up the stairs, took one look at Dumbledore and petrified me. He said “Oh God Albus, is it now?” And Dumbledore replied “Yes, my boy. Thank you, for this. Thank you, for saving me and the rest of the wizarding world. We were all so proud. It'll be over soon.” And then – and then Severus killed him.

“I'll never forget that moment. Then, of course, I realised that he was on the other side, when he carefully laid down Dumbledore's body, being as respectful as when he was dealing with explosive potions ingredients. He turned to me, and made me swear the modified Unbreakable Vow, the one that doesn't need a binder, that I would never give any suggestion to anyone that he was a spy and that I would always keep my memories so well hidden behind Occlumency barriers that no-one could guess, and that I'd never make any motion or speak to agree with anyone suggesting that he was not wholly true to Him. I promised that I would never tell anyone the whole truth of what had happened on the tower that night. Then, he levitated Dumbledore's body over the side, and the next thing I knew we were running down the stairs and back to the Flobberworm. I didn't have time to think about it till later, but when I did I began to realise that His way wasn't entirely the right way, which was why I knew what I had to do when Mother died. That gave me the courage, but I think Severus planted the first seeds of rebellion that night on the tower.”

There was a long silence. Harry hugged his boyfriend close to his chest. “I love you, Draco. You know that right?” he whispered.

“I love you too, Harry.”

It was the first time that they'd said it out loud, but even having two other people in the room, it somehow seemed right.

X

“So, back to business,” said Harry formally, once they'd all recovered somewhat from the revelations of the evening. His tone was oddly incongruous to his position, with Draco in his lap, and Harry's arms wrapped tightly around the other boy's waist. “The reason all of this came out in the first place is that Flobberworm wanted to see Hermione. What are we going to do about that? There's so much at stake here.”

Draco looked at his godfather. “What are the risks? Aside from the obvious, of course. What does he want?”

“I don't think that he wants to kill her immediately,” Severus responded. (There was a snort of “Oh, that's reassuring, it won't be immediate!” from Hermione. He ignored it.) “In fact, he seemed to be rather intrigued, which is a good sign. I think he wants to use your magical skills. Maybe you could show him your golems? Can anyone recreate that but you? By the way, now that we've established that that art story was rubbish, what do you actually use them for?”

Hermione looked thoughtful. “The charms themselves aren't that difficult, but it's the working them all in tandem which takes practice. I don't think a wizard of average power would be able to do that immediately. I suppose someone very powerful, like Harry or the Flobberworm could do it by sheer force, but it does need focus as well. You have to connect the image or memory to the sand. Harry's never been able to manage that bit, you remember, when we were first setting up the Room, Harry?” 

The man-who-lived nodded. “Yeah, I did all the animation charms, but I just couldn't get keep the properties of the sand and the person in my head at the same time.”

Hermione nodded. “No, I think it probably takes a good understanding of muggle chemistry, an understanding of the sand as a crystalline molecular structure, to be able to modify it in that way. So no, Severus, I don't think that anyone but me can make a whole golem at the moment. Well, you would probably be able to if I showed you how, but I think you're the only other person with both the understanding of Muggle science and the power and focus to do all the spells together.”

Severus was looking a little confused. “That's good, but what's this Room? The true purpose of the golems, I presume, but what does it do?”

Hermione laughed. “Maybe the premiership footballer Sam White will invite his boyfriend's Uncle over for dinner one day and you'll find out!”

Draco sniggered. “Oh, please, let's. I can't wait to see his face.”

“Or,” said Severus, “you could just tell me. Since the Dark Lord wants to see me bring H to him on Saturday night, and so we might never get that dinner party at all.”  
That brought them all down to earth with a snap.

“We know when,” said Harry, “do we know where he'll be? We could try an assassination attempt.”

“Don't be ridiculous, Harry!” cried Hermione.

“I'm afraid not, Potter,” explained Severus. “He never tells us where we're meeting, only the time so we can be prepared. Then, he uses the Mark to summon us there.”

“Except, of course,” added Hermione, “about his plans for Election Night, which he's been boasting about for months, so there's a good chance he'll stick to them.”

“What are we going to do?” asked Harry. “On the one hand, if Flobberworm doesn't discover Hermione's identity immediately, then we've got a huge bargaining chip in terms of your powers with magical golems. He'll like you, and maybe take you in which would give us another spy in his ranks. On the other hand, if he does figure out who you are, we're all completely screwed and the war is basically lost. For real this time.”

There was a silence as they all considered this solemnly.

“I think her Occlumency is up to it,” said Severus. “If she managed to withstand my attack, which she wasn't expecting, then if she goes in prepared she should be fine.”

“Yeah,” added Draco. “Besides, Uncle Sevviekins and I have been lying to him for years, if anyone can train you up in a week it's us.”

“Are you sure?” asked Hermione nervously. “Because frankly, I probably have more in my head about the way that we're all hidden than anyone, including Harry. Without me, you'll never get everyone back out of hiding in time for the battle at the very least, and if Flobberworm learns where we all are.... that reminds me,” she changed topic suddenly and turned to look at Severus. “Earlier on, when we were talking, you said words which we know are Taboo. The real name of His organisation, for example. Why isn't the entire might of the Ministry down on our heads?”

He grinned at her. Hermione was struck again by the thought that it was possibly the most beautiful sight in the world. “I have special dispensation. In fact, so does Draco. The Taboos don't apply to anyone with a Dark Mark. In fact, I did rather wonder why my Godson has continued to use those ridiculous euphemisms. Flobberworm, indeed.”

Draco shrugged. “I rather liked it. It seemed appropriately demeaning. Then, talking to Harry so much, I've rather got in the habit.”

Harry coughed lightly. “As interesting as that little digression was, back to the subject at hand – will Princess Hermione go to the Ice-Cream ball?”

“Since it's the only way to keep both of us alive past next Sunday, yes,” said Severus.

“At least I won't be the only half intelligent person there any more,” said Draco.

“Well, it does seem like the best option,” said Harry.

“Oh god, I'm going to meet the Flobberworm for real,” said Hermione.

“Oh, and Uncle Sevviekins?”

“Don't call me that.”

“You're officially invited to may boyfriend's mansion for dinner on Sunday night. Because if you don't survive Saturday, I'll have to kill both of you myself.”

“I suppose I shall have to accept, if I want to see the secrets of this mysterious room. Can I bring a date?”

“But of course.”

“We shall be there at seven, then.”

“Oi!” interrupted Harry. “Don't I get a look in? It's my manor!”

“And what about me,” interjected Hermione mock-indignantly. “Does the date actually get asked, or where you planning to kidnap her?”

Severus turned to her. “My dearest H, would you consider coming to dinner at the mansion of my nephew's ostentatious and pretentious footballer boyfriend on Sunday night?”

She smiled. “Alright then. If I must.”

Harry looked at Draco expectantly. The latter rolled his eyes. “Oh Harrikins, love and light of my life, I'm inviting them to dinner and there's nothing you can do about it.”

They all laughed.


	16. Chapter 16

Saturday evening, 11:45 pm. Helena (as she was now thinking of herself) and Severus sat together on her settee, mindlessly watching some sort of comedy show. The man on the television was garnering giggles aplenty from the audience in the auditorium where he stood, but the audience in this particular flat was silent and tense. Occasionally, their eyes would meet, and one or the other of them would relax their posture slightly, before slowly tensing up again.

Helena glanced occasionally at the clock on the wall. Supposedly, they were to have been summoned by 10:30.

“Is it usual for him to be this late?”

“Yes. He doesn't believe in being predictable.”

“All right.”

Silence reigned once more.

It was almost one in the morning when Severus suddenly winced, and clutched his arm. All traces of the tiredness which had been creeping over Helena vanished suddenly as she jumped to her feet.

“It's time?” she asked.

He nodded. “We'll be all right, I promise. Just keep calm. Your occlumency is good, and my barriers will hold.”

She nodded. “I trust you.”

They clasped hands, and Severus shut his eyes. Suddenly they found themselves on the crest of a grey hill. Helena shivered, but not from the cold, though it was a chilly night. They were surrounded by black robed figures, hoods pulled over their heads, though they wore no masks. Each cloak had a very fine green trim around the hood and edge of the cloak.

“The inner circle,” whispered Severus.

In front of them stood the ugliest, most terrifying creature Helena had ever seen. Lord Voldemort's eyes were blood red, his limbs long and ungainly, and his skin as grey and mottled as a snake's. He sat on some sort of throne, which appeared to be made out of some sort of blackened wood, matching the long, dark wand which he clutched in one spindly hand. The part of Helena which used to be known as Hermione (deeply buried, hidden behind layers and layers of her own and Severus' barriers) had a sudden incongruous thought - Dictators and kitsch. Why? - but she suppressed it. 

She could not, however, suppress the shudder of revulsion and fear which passed through her at the sight of Lord Voldemort. However, following Severus' example, she prostrated herself before him (though she felt very uncomfortable baring her neck to this monster) and murmured “My lord.”

“Ssso, Ssseverus,” he hissed. “You have brought me the girl.”

Snape stood. “My lord, she wishes to serve you as well as she is able.”

“Do you?”

Realising that this was addressed to her, Helena began to speak, without looking up. (This was partly to appear subservient, but more to put off the dreaded moment of Legilimency as long as possible.) She hardly knew what she was saying, but then, ad-libbing impromptu speeches in the House of Commons had always been her speciality.

“My lord, I wish to serve you in any way I can. I know that your cause is to rid the world of Muggle scum, and I feel that this is good. Yes, my mother polluted the purity of my bloodline by mating with a Muggle, but I wish to recant that wrong, get rid of all the Mudbloods who are stealing magic from rightful witches and wizards. Muggles must be put into their place, below wizards. I know that my blood makes me unworthy to serve, which is why I did not come forward before, but please, allow me to help in any way which I may be able.”

There was a pause. “Look at me.”

Hermione looked up, into those terrifying red eyes. 

She screamed, suddenly, as she felt his invasion into her mind with all the customary pain which a hostile search implied, but her barriers held. She felt as Voldemort rifled through, searching for signs of betrayal. He found only the frustration and contempt she felt as she sat at work (entirely real), the anger which suffused her entire being (also very real, though not usually directed at Muggles) and a fabricated backstory of a lonely child who had learned magic only to be kicked out by magical relations for being impure, and spurned by Muggles because she could never fit in. She had tried to gain power by another means, working for the Muggle government because she had no connections in Wizarding London, but was failing, finding herself frustrated and angry. So much anger.... She showed him the entire process of creating golems in order to destroy them to assuage her anger, using her Muggle knowledge to destroy them.... false memories of sending Golems onto the streets, killing unsuspecting Muggles late at night.....

The connection broke. “I see your fear, but also your anger, child.” That endearment coming from the lips of the Dark Lord was almost scarier than if he had shouted. 

There was a sudden infringement from the circle. Lucius Malfoy stepped forward, golden hair glowing in the light from the glittering moon which illuminated the night sky.

“My lord, how can she serve? She is but a foolish, impure Mudblood. Just because Severus is sleeping with her...”

“Crucio.” Voldemort hissed, and suddenly Malfoy was on the floor, face contorting with pain. Ignoring his whimpers, Voldemort turned back to Helena. “However unwise his speaking out of turn may have been, Lucius has a point. What can you offer me?”

Knowing what he wanted to see, she stood up, taking with her a clod of earth in her left hand. Taking a deep breath to clear her mind of her growing headache, she removed the memory of Malfoy Sr. convulsing on the ground from her mind with the tip of her wand, and combined it with the earth. Muttering under her breath, she set the earth to spinning in mid-air, growing and pulsing all the while until a perfect replica of Malfoy, groaning and crying, lay on the ground at the feet of the Dark Lord. The real Malfoy, who by now had regained his feet and his place in the circle, looked murderous. A chorus of evil laughter went around the circle, as Malfoy-on-the-floor gave a particularly pathetic whimper. 

“He cries like a girl,” called a voice, but whose, Helena could not discern.

The laughter intensified, to the rage and shame of Malfoy, until Voldemort, who was still staring at the golem with something like calculation on his snakelike face, silently held up a hand and it stopped instantaneously, leaving a ringing silence in its place.

“Interesting,” said the Dark Lord.

Helena felt Severus tense from where he stood beside her. Clearly, that could be either good or bad.

Voldemort's eyes met Helena's. “How far can you manipulate this creature?”

Somehow knowing what she wanted, Helena waved her wand at the Malfoy golem. It stood, suddenly, raising a facsimile wand and shouting “Pyrros!”. A bush nearby caught fire. 

“Interesting,” was all the response she got. 

“My Lord, I have studied the technique in Helena's mind, and I cannot replicate it.”

“Silence, Severus.” There was a note of warning in the tone, but Voldemort did sound interested nonetheless. “Is this true, Helena?”

“My Lord, I do not know why, but apparently it is my affinity for Mud through my Mudblood heritage which allows me this control. I know that this makes them unworthy tools of an unworthy creature in your employ, but please allow me to use these to destroy the Muggles.”

There was some chuckling from the circle at this.

“My dear, your creatures may prove very useful indeed.” Two endearments from Voldemort in the space of ten minutes! Helena suppressed another shudder. “How many can you control at once?”

“Twenty seven, my Lord. But with the correct pre-programming, telling them what to do in advance, I can control up to two hundred using a pensive.” He knew all this from her memories anyway – what was the harm?

Voldemort nodded. “I know, you speak the truth. I saw it in your mind.”

There was a pause. The twenty or so people surrounding them were silent as the grave, though as the pause lengthened, Helena was aware of wands being very quietly drawn, in preparation for what they felt sure was to come next.

Voldemort rose from his chair, clearly ready to make an announcement. “I have looked into Helena's mind, and found her worthy. She will therefore join our brethren.”

The woman sighed with relief, pasting a smile onto her face.

There was an intake of breath from the circle, but no-one interrupted. Voldemort nodded to Bellatrix Lestrange, who gave a sort of half curtsey, sneered at Hermione and Severus, then disapparated.

“Severus, you may act as her sponsor.”

“Thank you, my Lord.” He stepped forward from his place in the circle, to which he had retreated during the golem demonstrations.

“Kneel,” said the Dark Lord.

Helena knelt on the ground. She had been instructed on the ritual by Severus beforehand, so knew what her responses should be.

“Do you wish to join the circle of Death Eaters?” asked Voldemort, standing before her.

“I do.” 

Severus raised his wand, and a circle of white light surrounded her left wrist, which she held aloft, palm up.

“Will you follow the orders of Lord Voldemort, for the advancement of his cause, at all times?”

“I will.” A circle of red light surrounded the white.

“Would you die for Lord Voldemort?”

“I would.” A green band completed the perverse halo.

Severus then tapped his wand to Helena's wrist, making a shallow cut of about an inch just above the vein. The blood welling up was held in place by the circles of light.

It was at that moment that there was a crack of Apparition and Bellatrix returned, dragging with her a small boy of about ten years old, wrapped in black ropes. He was screaming silently, obviously having been spelled quiet, but the fear in his eyes was real.

“I dealt with the Muggle scum parents,” she cackled evilly. “Thought I'd leave the kid for Andrews. See how real all that devotion is, hah!”

“Thank you, Bella,” said Voldemort icily. Cowed, she returned to her place, but not before removing the silencing charm. 

The boy's screams rent the air, before Severus, with a nonchalant wave of his wand, silenced them again. Tears ran down the chubby little face.

“I dislike scenes. Kill it,” said Severus, with less emotion than she had ever seen on his narrow face.

“No,” interrupted Voldemort. Hermione looked at him in shock: this interruption had not been expected. “I want to see how deep that loyalty really runs,” continued the Dark Lord. “Cast the Cruciatus Curse.”

Helena looked at the boy. He was blonde, blue eyed. Beautiful, innocent. How could she? She had been trying for the past week to get herself to accept the idea of murdering quickly another human being in order to complete the ritual, but torture? Of this small, innocent boy?

If she did not, then Voldemort would suspect her of treachery, and kill her. Severus, too, would be punished severely for having brought him a traitor. Even if Voldemort did not plunder her mind of its secrets, the Order would never be able to find the others in time for Election Night.

On the other hand, there was the life of this beautiful, golden boy. Could she really, even for all that, torture him because he had the misfortune to be born without magic? Surely, that would tear her soul more certainly than a simple murder.

There was a sudden high-pitched cackle from Lestrange. “She can't do it! My Lord, she does not truly serve!”

Helena found, suddenly, that there was no choice at all. 

“Crucio!” 

In that second, Hermione chose her cause over her soul.

The boy's pain broke suddenly through the silencing charms. The screaming once again filled her ears. 

It seemed to go on and on for hours. Only the solidity of Severus next to her kept Helena upright. As she cast with her right, wand hand, she felt her left arm burning, but it was nothing to the physical pain she felt throughout herself at this atrocity. 

“Enough,” said Voldemort, holding up a hand. She stopped the curse, panting. The ropes around the boy dissolved at a wave of the Dark Lord's hand, and he lay in a cowering, catatonic heap. “Well done, Helena. Now, you may kill it. Do it inventively, if you please. Or perhaps, I should give it to my loyal Death Eaters. Rodolphus, I know that you enjoy making Muggle children scream, perhaps you would like to show Helena your knives?”

“With pleasure, my Lord,” said a short, lean man, stepping forward with an expression of lust and depravity, opening his cloak to reveal a set of sharp looking instruments. “This one's skin would go so beautifully bruised, so easily! The blood, so red, and young and glorious! And I could keep him alive for days!”

Helena knew, all of a sudden, that she was not letting this paedophilic sadist anywhere near that poor boy, whatever she had to do.

“My Lord, please, allow me to finish the show! I believe that I can be inventive enough to entertain, given the chance.” Helena felt, rather than saw, Severus stiffen.

“Go on, then,” said Lord Voldemort, raising one eyebrow. Rodolphus stepped back, looking rather put out.

Hermione raised her wand, begging the forgiveness of any deities which might still hear her. “Imperio!”

She did her best to make the boy's brain as fogged up and fuzzy as possible as she cast.

The golden haired child sat up, eyes blank.

He picked up a rock from the floor next to him. It was about the size of Hermione's fist, too big for one little hand so he held it in both.

The blue eyes remained blank as the toddler hit himself in the head with the rock.

Again.

His nose broke.

And again.

The golden curls were stained a dark, accusatory red.

And again.

The Death Eaters jeered as the blood ran down his face. “Good show,” called one.

“Aim for lower down,” called another.

Hermione winced, but motioned with her wand.

The boy began to hit not only his head.

A sharp blow to the stomach had him splitting blood.

Severus took her hand and squeezed it. 

The small boy hit himself in the groin, muffling his own scream of pain with a hit to the mouth which knocked out his few teeth.

It took far too little time for his skull to give in.

Vaguely, as through through a distant haze, Hermione heard Voldemort declaim the final words of the ritual, binding her to him forever through the Dark Mark.

“So be it,” he said.

Helena didn't recall any more, but that was a blessing. As she closed her eyes and succumbed to the blackness of magical exhaustion, she tried to blank out those accusatory blue eyes.


	17. Chapter 17

She awoke in her own bed. Helena Andrews looked around at the familiar room. She struggled to sit up, a small noise escaping her which woke the dark man lounging in the chair beside her.

“Hello,” he said.

“Hi,” she replied weakly, smiling. “Did we do it?”

He smiled, lighting up the world. “Of course.”

He looked into her eyes, and muttered Legilimens. Helena felt herself drowning in those bottomless orbs of blackness, and her eyes drifted shut until....

Hermione Granger awoke in her own bed. As it was she who awoke this time, there was little need for an assessment of the surroundings – either she was dead, or they had done it and Severus had removed the blocks he had added to her mind, separating her from the past and making her think of herself as Helena.

She opened her eyes once more, to find him sitting in a chair by her bedside, smiling wider than she had ever seen. Hermione felt her own mouth curving upwards, and she reached out to him and kissed him.

It was perfect. Everything was perfect.

That was, until the twinge in her left arm brought her back to reality. She looked down at her wrist – there, stark against her pale skin, was the Dark Mark, shadowed and black.

“Oh.”

“I'm so sorry.” He had followed her gaze.

“Don't be. It was the best possible outcome, I suppose. It's just....”

“The boy?”

“Yes.”

“You did your best. Your way was far more merciful than Rodolphus would have been.”

“Yes.”

There was a pause.

“You couldn't have simply used Avada Kedavra. That would not have been the entertainment required.”

“I know.”

“But it doesn't help.”

“No.”  
“It was for a greater cause, H. Remember that.”

“I know, intellectually. But... God, how do you do it?”

He looked solemn. “I can only keep sane by hoping that one day, all these sacrifices will be worth it. In this case, his life for your membership of the Death Eater Inner Circle.”

He motioned to her midnight black death eater robes and mask, which lay draped over the dresser. A very fine green piping on the hood and at the edge of the cloak was just visible.

Hermione started. “Inner circle? I thought I'd joined the organisation as a whole! Doesn't it take years to work up to that?”

“Usually, yes.”

“Then...”

“I think that you impressed him last night. To cast two unforgiveables in the space of fifteen minutes – most wizards require twenty-four hours to recover from one. Also, at a guess, I'd say that he has plans for your golems. Those are just my impressions, but I've been reading him for nigh on thirty years.”

She nodded, then looked away, pensive. Her mind felt... not quite her own, and she was strangely aware of Severus next to her. Not in a sexual way, but his very presence seemed heightened.

“I can... feel you, Severus. I mean, your Mark. It's like they're connected.”

He looked away. “Yes, H. That's how he calls us. As far as I can tell, the marks are all connected in a sort of web, ranging outwards from the Dark Lord at the centre. You will feel me most strongly, because I was your sponsor, but you'll always be able to tell if anyone you're talking to has the Dark Mark.”

“Oh. That could come in handy, I suppose.”

“Yes, it does. As an Inner Circle member, you can also apparate to the side of any other Death Eater, at any time. I would not, however, recommend it. Most of us have some rather nasty traps waiting for anyone who tries to catch us unawares. I've taken the liberty of adding them to your own Mark.”

She nodded. “All right.”

“Also, unlike the majority of the Death Eaters, the Inner Circle does have regular meetings, on the first Tuesday of every month.”

Hermione was suddenly angry. “So why the hell didn't we just plan an assassination attempt at one of those then?”

“Because at the time, there was only one of me in the Inner Circle, if you'll remember. Also, these meetings are held at Malfoy Manor, which is the most heavily warded place in Britain. On meeting days, excess wards are added to keep out anyone who is not in the Inner Circle. That would include Draco, who is the only Malfoy among us, and thus the only non-loyal person with any chance at all of breaking the other wards on the house. That's not good odds.”

“Oh.” Hermione's sudden rage vanished as quickly as it had come.

“Precisely.”

“When's the next meeting?”

“Not for three weeks – this month's was last Tuesday, and that was when he informed me that he wanted to see you. I'd expect to be called sooner, however. I'd wager he wants to discuss your golems.”

“Very well.”

Another awkward silence.

“Hermione,” said Severus, sighing. “I know how you feel. Like you're aching all over, and your soul's been torn in two. That's because it has. But you just have to keep going, keep moving, and pray that one day it'll all be worth it.”

Hermione turned away from him, suddenly and involuntarily losing control at his clear empathy. She began sobbing, tears coursing down her blotched red face.

“I know that intellectually, it's just...”

She could no longer speak, but let out unladylike wails of sadness at the world, tears for that poor boy, for herself, for Severus.

An awkward arm stretched around her waist, and then she felt Severus' comforting warmth behind her on the bed. They lay spooned like that for the rest of the day, until Hermione's quiet sobs of shame abated.

X

Somehow, they made it to Harry's mansion by a quarter past eight, both smartened up and dressed, Hermione in wine red dress robes which she had not had a chance to wear for years (she felt like asserting her witchiness this evening) and Severus in his customary black. They made quite the imposing couple as they apparated to the manor and rang the doorbell.

This turned out to be a good thing.

The door opened with a bang, and Harry stood there, wand in hand, brandishing it at them. “What do you want? Who are you?”

Behind him was ranged the entire Order of the Phoenix, including Draco, all with their wands out, and in a battle stance.

“What? Harry, it's me, Hermione. Your best friend!”

“Liar!” he spat. She had not seen him this angry in years. “Hermione's never late, she'd have been here on time! You must be an impostor.”

Hermione and Severus exchanged puzzled looks. “What? We're early! We were meant to meet at half eight, and now it's only quarter past.”

“Yes, quarter past nine!”

Draco stepped forward.

“Harry, calm down. That's actually them. I can tell Severus through his mark, and...” he whispered something in Harry's ear.

The boy who lived turned to them. “Hermione, what was the first lie you ever told a teacher, and whom did you tell?”

She looked down, blushing slightly. “Um. In first year, I told Severus, Minerva and Dumbledore that I'd gone looking for the troll, instead of the truth – that I'd hidden in the bathroom to cry about Ron being rude about me and got cornered.”

Severus raised an eyebrow. He'd thought at the time that it didn't fit, Miss Goody-Two-Shoes breaking so many rules at once. The fact that he felt a sudden inflammation in his chest at the thought that Weasley had insulted his Hermione.... he wasn't examining that too closely.

Harry looked slightly less panicked and ruffled. “Right. You seem to be Hermione and Snape.”

He stepped back to allow them into the hallway. They had hardly taken two steps when he rounded on them again. “But why the fuck are you so late?”

Hermione tried to placate him. “Genuinely, we thought we were early. That it was a quarter past eight – oh!” It suddenly dawned on her. “It's the solstice! The clocks went forward an hour, but because we were out last night, I missed the change, and then I slept through most of today, and completely forgot about it!”

Looking relieved, Harry laughed suddenly. “That's the most stupid thing I've ever heard! You're saying that I called a full Order crisis meeting because you forgot to change the clock?”

“Oops?” she offered weakly.

“You... oh, of all the times to forget, Hermione! I was twenty minutes away from shipping everyone to South America!”

Hermione looked round. “Sorry, guys.”

There was a series of exhalations and shaking of heads around the room. Then, Hannah stepped forward, and gave Hermione a hug, forcing her to take her hand out of Severus', where it had remained all the while.

“Just as long as you're OK,” she said quietly.

Again, a series of nods, as Hannah stepped back. Ron's expression went apoplectic as Hermione's hand found Severus' once more. He was just about to say something, when Ernie interrupted:

“Can we discuss this over dinner? I'm starving now, and I really, really need a glass of wine after all this palaver.”

As they went into the dining room, sitting around the long wooden table, plates with the first course, something which appeared to include shrimps and lime, appeared on the table. Dobby had refused to go anywhere without his Harry Potter after the battle, so now ran the mansion to an exacting standard, much to Hermione's disgust, though she was slightly mollified by the fact that Harry paid him a salary of fifteen pounds a month and all the socks he wanted. It was a standing joke in the British tabloid press that Sam “One-Sock” White seemed to need a new pair before each game.

As they took their seats, Draco whispered to Hermione and Severus, “We explained about you, Severus. Sorry, but your memories had to do a few more rounds.” Severus looked discomfited, but acquiescent. Hermione squeezed his hand in support.

“They took some persuading, MacMillan and Weasley particularly, but we did it. Everyone got a bit of a shock when we said where you'd gone and why, then when you didn't come back.... They deserve to know the truth, I think, of what happened.”

Dinner was a strained meal. It was rather difficult to make small talk with people whom you had not been expecting to see, and had expected to be dead all of half an hour ago. Hermione and Severus found it easier to eat in silence than try to pretend to be nice. Draco was doing enough talking for all of them, anyway, the consummate host, clearly trying to put them at their ease in preparation for the shocks to come. Harry was deep in thought, and quite useless, despite the obvious kicks under the table that Draco kept giving him.

As had become customary for the Order, by tacit agreement business was left until after the meal. Once the last pots of crème brulée had been vanished from the table, and everyone had acquired their tipple of choice, it began.

“So,” said Harry, nursing his brandy. “I presume Flobberworm rather liked you, since you're still here.”

Hermione winced. “Way to put it bluntly, Harry. Yes, I impressed him. Not only was I allowed into the Death Eaters, I'm an inner circle member.”

There were gasps, and everyone looked shocked, including Draco. “Seriously? After one meeting? You must have really impressed him.”

Severus interrupted smoothly. “I believe that the Dark Lord was quite taken with H's golems. It is my belief that he will want her to build an army.”

Hermione squeezed his hand, thanking him silently for distracting everyone and not mentioning what else she had done to impress him. Severus nodded very slightly.

The notion of a golem army controlled by Hermione certainly seemed to have distracted the table. The room was suddenly loud with noise and chattering.

“What? Could you do that?” asked Ron angrily, voice rising above the nattering. “Why haven't you made one for us? We could have defeated Voldemort years ago!” There were murmurs of agreement from Ernie and Susan.

“Honestly, Ron!” Hermione looked quite cross. “I only perfected the design of the golems with Severus' help a few days ago. And no, I couldn't create an army in the way you're thinking.”

The table had gone quiet again. They were all looking at her.

“In the Room, I can make the golems we fight seem almost like autonomous beings because there's a very complex set of instructions controlling their behaviour, but they cannot think. Life cannot be created in that way – it's the first thing we all learned in Charms in first year. It's just that the instructions are so complex that for the short time that any of us is in contact with a golem, they appear to be thinking as they fight, planning moves and things like that. They are not. They are simply following a series of pre-written instructions, like a game of chess which you would play on the computer. Are you all with me?”

There was a series of nods, though some faces remained puzzled, and Severus and Draco had gone completely blank at her mention of computerised chess. Ron's face, however, had cleared completely at the simile, and he was nodding most enthusiastically of all.

“Now,” Hermione continued, “within the Room, there's only a certain amount of things you can do, places you can be. Therefore, it can be a very, very complex set of instructions. But if I were to create a golem here to send out into the world unrestricted, I could only probably give it one or two very simple instructions before it collapsed under the weight of too much magic. Also, the more golems, the simpler the instructions have to be. For example, if I put the instruction “kill”, the golems would kill everything in their path indiscriminately until they got too far away from me and the magic failed.”

Susan shuddered. “Sounds scary, but exactly the kind of thing that Voldemort would want! Indiscriminate murder.”

Hermione shook her head. “His own people would be killed along with the others.”

“What if he apparated them away?” asked Harry. “That's what I'd do, if I were an evil megalomaniac.”

“I don't know, Harry,” said Hermione. “But either way, the golems would always be under my control, so hopefully we'll never have to find out.”


	18. Chapter 18

Life continued. It was ten days after her first meeting that Hermione was summoned once more into Voldemort's prescence. When the call came, she and Severus were having a quiet dinner at the flat.

She gave a sharp yelp of pain, in the middle of a sentence, and clutched her arm. Severus seemed fine. 

“This probably means that he wants to talk to you alone, about the golems,” he said quietly. “Go on, you're a member of the Inner Circle now. You'll be alright.”

With a wan smile, she summoned her Death Eater robes and put them on, before closing her eyes and apparating with no fixed destination in mind.

She found herself on a beach of grey sand, which stretched as far as the eye could see in both directions. Voldemort stood before her, so she knelt, bowing her head. “Arise, my daughter,” he said, giving her mind a cursory scan as their eyes met. But she was prepared, and he saw nothing that she did not want him to.

“Make me a 'golem', as you call them,” he commanded.

Picking a random memory from her mind, of her childhood teacher, Hermione did so. Within seconds, standing before her was a very ordinary looking man, with sandy brown hair and brown eyes. She had, however, been careful to replace the Muggle suit which Mr. Sandringham always wore with a set of emerald green robes.

Voldemort walked around him. “Interesting. I have tried to replicate these charms myself, as I saw them in your mind, and such a result I cannot garner.”

Hermione felt that the best response to this was probably more fawning, so once again she threw herself on the sand, wailing about how she was unworthy and how if only she could serve him.

“Get up,” he said shortly, and, anxious not to incur his wrath, she did.

“You say you can control two hundred.”

“Yes. But the more there are, the simpler the command which I can have them perform.”

“Let me see.”

The rest of the evening, until late in the night, was spent with two hundred and fifty (he had pushed her beyond her self-imposed limits) identical copies of Mr. Sandringham walking round the beach. Voldemort was almost scientific in the way that he measured the maximum distance a golem could go from her without disintegrating back into earth (321 feet precisely), and the complexity of the spells that a golem could cast within that area. Then, once the moon had risen high in the sky and the beach had to be lit by tiny little white lights, conjured by the Dark Lord himself, he finally bade her stop all the other tests, and conduct one last one.

“Tell them to kill each other.”

“My lord, that instruction is too complex for so many! I can tell them to kill, but they will turn on us as well. It is too general a command.” Hermione was by this point too exhausted to be properly fawning. She hoped that the “My lords” which she kept inserting at odd moments were doing the trick by themselves.

“That is a failing within your own inadequate mind, Helena.”

Hermione really, really hated being called inadequate, but she was hardly going to argue. Voldemort was ignoring her anyway, continuing in his solliloquy.

“These golems must have a sense of self in order to be able to recognise that they are following the instructions, so must be able to recognise others of their kind. Like recognises like, after all. It is not such a stretch to go from 'kill' to 'kill anything which is like me'.”

She didn't think it worked like that, but she decided she might as well give it a go. There was, of course, one problem.

“But will they not kill themselves first?” she asked, adding “My Lord,” as an afterthought.

“Let us see.”

Hermione, with some trepidation, did as he had ordered, concentrating on the collection of charms which made up the essence of what a golem was, and then flicking her wand with the order to “kill golems”. 

What happened next was precisely what Hermione had expected. Each golem, without ceremony, ripped its own head off and collapsed into a pile of sand on the beach.

“Interesting,” was all that Voldemort would comment.

X

Another two weeks passed. Towards the end of April, Seamus went on another business trip, this time to France. But this time, the news was not so good. When he arrived at the address Hermione had given him, there was nothing but a burned out shack, the words “ell Cott” just visible on the remains of a singed signpost in the front garden.

He tramped across the muddy ground, towards the house, when suddenly he found himself at wandpoint. A short, squat wizard was pointing a thin white wand at him. Suddenly, the wizard spoke in English, in a gruff, loud voice. “You? English? What you want?”

“I'm looking for the people who used to live here,” said Seamus nervously, backing away. This definitely hadn't been part of the plan. “Bill and Fleur Weasley? They were friends of mine from long ago.”

The french wizard raised an eyebrow, wrinkling his nose. “Friends?”

That time, the accent was very slightly wrong, and Seamus had an inkling of what he was dealing with. He decided to go for broke.

“Yes,” he said. “Friends. My name is Seamus Finnegan. Hermione Granger would like me to tell you that the first three of Henry the Eighth's wives, were divorced, beheaded and died respectively.”

The French wizard changed suddenly to a tall, pink-haired woman. “And I'll remind you that the only one of the rest which matters is the last – because she survived his terrors.”

She held out a hand, putting her wand back in its sheath up the sleeve of her violet robes. “Hi. I'm Tonks. Come and meet the family, Seamus Finnegan.”

It was quite odd, reflected Seamus, to be side-along apparated when you had not travelled in that manner for almost ten years. They burst with a loud bang into a cosy kitchen, in which a pair of blue-haired twins were colouring, while their younger sister, her hair floor-length and blonde, played with dolls by the fire. 

“Remus?” shouted the woman called Tonks. “I'm back!”

It was an even stranger feeling to be greeted by your ex-teacher as a comrade and friend, thought the Irishman. Ex-Professor Lupin unfolded from a chair by the fire, stretching his lanky legs and standing to meet them.

He kissed his wife. “I gathered that you were home from the loud bang, dear,” he told her with a smile. “It tends to accompany apparition. And who's the guest?”

He turned to face him. “Seamus Finnegan, sir. Friend of Harry's. I was in your defence class, third year. It's very nice to see you safe.”

“He knew the pass-phrase, Remus.” 

The werewolf nodded gravely. “Have you news?”

“Yes. But I'd also like to know – what happened to Shell Cottage? Where are Bill Weasley and Fleur Delacour? They were meant to be my main contacts.”

Lupin's face darkened. “Not all has gone well, this side of the channel. But time enough for that later, once the children are in bed.”

He turned to these, introducing them. “Seamus, meet Amy and Alex, aged seven. They both inherited their mother's metamorphosis powers, hence the hair.” 

“I rather like it!” said the Irishman with a grin. This earned him twin beaming smiles, before they went back to their colouring books.

“They're Amelia and Alexander really,” confided Remus, “but Dora refused to have names which couldn't be shortened easily, and we're used to the nicknames now.”

He turned to the youngest. “Here we have Cora, aged three. It's short for Corialina – an old family name.”

“Is Cora a metamorphamagus too?” asked Seamus curiously. 

“Not exactly,” replied Remus. “With the one exception of her hair. No matter how much you cut it or dye it, it always ends up floor-length and blonde within twenty four hours. She can't change that consciously though, or anything else about her appearance.”

Cora, who had big grey eyes like her father, looked up vaguely from the dolls, waved at Seamus, and returned to her own pursuits.

“They go to the local Muggle primary school and kindergarten,” said Tonks, in answer to a question which had not been asked. “They're bilingual in both English and French, thanks to that.” 

She sounded rather proud, so Seamus felt it was only polite to nod interestedly. “Wow. Do you still have ties to the French magical community, though?”

Her face lost its smile. “No. After the children are in bed.”

X

Once this mythical time arrived, Seamus found himself ensconced with Tonks and Lupin by the fire. By some unspoken agreement, Lupin began the story. 

“At the beginning, we moved in will Fleur's family, in their mansion near Paris. It's a beautiful city – Dora and I fell in love there.”

“Maybe you did,” interjected Tonks with a snort. “Why do you think I followed you to France in the first place?”

“Anyway, Bill and Fleur got married and moved into Shell Cottage, the remains of which you saw, and then Dora and I did, and bought our own house right in the centre of Paris, on the Rue de la Lune. At first, everything seemed fine. I worked in a small clerical capacity for the French Ministry, and Dora joined their Law Enforcement department.

“About three years in, when Dora was on maternity leave with the twins, one of her contacts in Law Enforcement called us. Apparently, Voldemort's government had called for our extradition as dangerous war criminals, and though the French government didn't officially allow it, certain pro-pureblood officials had granted permission for a group of Death Eaters to come through and assassinate us instead. I don't know how they found us – I suppose that Fleur's family was just too prominent not to be noticed.”

Seamus had started at the names. Tonks, noticing, explained: “The taboo doesn't extend past the borders of the UK, you know. Even the one on Voldemort's name. The French Ministry isn't actually all made up of Death Eaters – just lots of purebloods with old-fashioned ideas.”

Remus continued. “See, since the travesty of Grindelwald in the 40s, Wizarding Governments tend to have a live and let live policy towards one another, to avoid another conflict as far as possible. So as long as it was all done on the quiet, no-one would really object to two families being murdered. It was only by sheer luck, that this friend of Dora's was a secretary, and had seen a few documents she probably shouldn't. Bill and Fleur weren't so lucky. Fleur's family lost their position and a lot of their wealth trying to get justice for their eldest daughter, but the government had closed ranks by this point, so there was really no chance.

We did as Hermione had suggested before, and went into hiding in the Muggle world, here in France. The chateau has a wine cellar which I use for transformations. In the absence of Wolfsbane, I tend to find that an alcoholic stupor helps to numb the pain. Dora makes a living as a model in the Paris catwalks – of course, she's always whatever they're looking for that season. I supplement that with some teaching, mainly of English. We get by.

So, that's our story,” finished Lupin. “I hope you've come to tell us that we can come home soon.”

“Maybe,” said Seamus. He was moved by their plight, and suddenly struck by how much older Remus looked. He was only in his early fifties, barely a third of his expected lifespan, but looked tired already. “I've come to tell you that we're going to have one last stand. Except this time, we intend to win.”


	19. Chapter 19

On this particular Wednesday night, the Order of the Phoenix, plus Draco and Severus, was meeting at an obscure little club in Kensington, the sort of place where hiring a private room for eleven was not something to be remarked upon, particularly when the known football multi-millionaires Sam White and his best friend Jimmy Blunt were paying.

Of course, the problem with this was that they had to be photographed entering the place with their respective other halves, which meant that Hermione's favourite, the darling Clarisse, was once again on the guest list. The rest of the order had entered by various back doors and were waiting in the private room when the two couples, Harry and Draco and Ron and Clarisse, made their triumphal entrance.

Clarisse was a creature in a class of her own. A beehive of badly died blonde hair, at least a foot high, sat precariously atop her permanently oompa-loompa tanned face. She was a true WAG (in the worst sense of the phrase) in every way, from the ostentatiously thick fake eyelashes which were the crowning glory on a face which always seemed to have been made up with a trowel, to the half-inch long fake nails, painted a disgustingly lurid pink. 

Clarisse was not the brightest button. On the rare occasions that they used this club for meetings, and she was a necessary accoutrement, she could never quite recall what had gone on, so presumed she had had a little too much to drink. The fact that Clarisse considered this nothing more than the sign of a good night out said, in Hermione's opinion, all that was necessary about her character. Hermione herself could not understand Clarisse's lack of compunction in losing control in such an obvious manner.

She flitted into the room in front of her boyfriend with an over-powerful waft of expensive yet still tasteless perfume.

“Daahling,” said Clarisse to Hermione, who had risen to greet them, kissing her on both cheeks with clearly no idea who the other woman was. This was not a problem for Hermione – in fact, she preferred it that way.

“Clarisse, how lovely to see you again,” said Hermione with a simpering smile, which made Severus, seated with her, snigger somewhat impolitely. She mock glared. “Behave. Sam, Jimmy, Clarisse, we were just having some drinks. What can I get you?”

Without waiting for a reply, Hermione picked up the brandy, firewhiskey and lurid pink cocktail which sat on the table in beside her in preparation for their arrival, and handed them out.

Clarisse took her glass but did not drink, instead fixating on Severus. “Who are you?”

Hermione intervened. “This is my partner, Severus Snape. He's Draco's uncle.”

To Clarisse, Draco meant Malfoy which meant rich. She batted her eyelids a little on principle. “Hi!”

Hurriedly, Ron draped an arm around his girlfriend. “What shall we drink to?” he asked.

“To not needing an excuse!” said Clarisse with a giggle, downing her drink in one. The others went for more demure sips. 

Within seconds, Clarisse's eyes rolled back into her head and she collapsed into Ron's waiting arms. Giving his drink to Harry, he laid her out carefully across the chair. Severus nearly tripped over the rug in his haste to move out of the way of the perilously quivering beehive.

“Do you think,” asked Ron, in one of his rare philosophical moments, as he looked down at her, prostrate on the green baize, “that I should feel more guilty that about three times a year, my friends and I drug my girlfriend with a Memory Draught and Sleeping Solution, so that she won't disturb our plans for an armed revolution against a mad dictator?”

Harry slapped him on the back. “Really mate, it's probably best not to ask that kind of question.”

They were just sitting down to the meeting, when two red heads peeked around the door. 

“Miss us?” said one. 

“You know you have,” said the other.

“Not to worry,” said Fred.

“The Weasley Twins are back!” announced George.

And with much aplomb they were welcomed back into the fold. It transpired that before the battle, Weasley's Wizarding Wheezes had been set to open its first American branch, so after the Battle of Hogwarts, they had simply moved the owners out there with it. Hermione had not been privy to this part of Harry's plan – it turned out that they had been emailing him regularly with ideas for weapons to use against Voldemort, as well as news and views.

They had heard about Bill. They shared a look with Ron, who, when Seamus shared the news had gone suddenly pale. He'd lost one brother and a sister to this war already – Percy had died at Hogwarts, mere hours after finally reuniting with his family – and three siblings was a step too far. His expression hardened. “Two weeks til we can get the bastards for good.”

“We'll get them,” said Fred and George in unison. The room was filled with nods, and Severus clutched Hermione's hand tight, even as Harry held Draco's.

When all this had come out, the twins looked at one another as though suddenly remembering something. “Hermione,” they said in unison.

“Not to worry about contacting the rest of the Order.”

“Mum and Dad have been running their place in Italy as a sort of safehouse for all order members – it's gotten quite famous outside the UK, I think we've all dropped by at some point or another, and you know what Mum's like, insists on keeping in touch. Anyway, Lupin called them as soon as Seamus here had left.”

“They said to tell you to forget whatever your France plan was, and that all the Order will be gathered at the safehouse on Election Night, ready to Portkey in as necessary. See, they know who's reliable and not, so best leave it up to them. Mum's already flooed McGonagall in Oz to let them know.” 

“We know that it messes with your plans.” 

“But you know what Mum's like. Best not to argue.”

Hermione thought about this. She would have liked to be able to vet the returning Order members herself, but supposed that this was a more practicable solution, rather than having to hire and ward an entire French hotel, as she'd been planning. And the twins had a point. Probably best not to cross Mrs. Weasley unless entirely necessary.

She shrugged expansively. “I leave it in her capable hands. Tell her that one of us will be there at five to midnight on the 6th of June, so be ready to go straight in then.”

“Will do,” said George. 

“We have ways of communicating,” said Fred.

“But that's not why we're here,” said George.

“The major problem with your Election Night plan,-”

“-is that once you get all the Ice-cream Eaters together in one place, you really don't want them to be able to get out again.”

“But simple apparition wards won't do, because we need the order to be able to get in.”

“So we present to you, the Candyfloss Net! Ideal for catching anyone who enjoys Ice-cream.” This last was said with a bitter twist of the lips.

Out of his pocket, Fred pulled an improbably large number of stones. They were white, and perfectly smooth and round. Carefully, he laid them in a circle on the floor.

“From the preliminary tests which we did with Draco at Harry's house, earlier this afternoon, we think that once an Eater is inside the circle, if the password is spoken, they will not be able to get out until the counterspell is released.”

“Any person not carrying the Mark is not affected, and can walk out freely. But anyone with it cannot walk, run, apparate or portkey out.”

Severus looked interested. “How?”

“The precise vibrational modes of the lodestones are attuned to the magic of the mark. Like calls to like, and therefore, the Ice-cream Eater in question is literally pulled by their mark back into the circle, so instantly that they can't actually leave.”

“May we test it?”

“Of course. Hermione, Professor, Hannah, would you like to step inside?”

The three did so without hesitation, curious to see the circle's effects.

“In this case,” pronounced George, “the password is 'fresh-picked toad.' ”

As he spoke, a gleaming golden dome rose up, connecting the lodestones and almost obscuring those in the circle from view. 

“It's beautiful,” breathed Neville.

“Hannah, if you'd like to come out please,” called Harry.

Hannah stepped through the golden haze with no difficulty. “Wow,” she said, looking at the dome from which she had just escaped. “From the inside, it just looks like the world's gone really blurry beyond a certain point.”

“Hermione, Severus, can you come out please?”

There was no response but silence. “As you can see,” said Fred, “anyone with a Mark is prohibited from communicating in any way with the outside. Even if they had owls in there, any owl most recently touched by someone with the Mark is tainted and would just rebound on the inside of the dome. They can hear us, though.”

“Ooh,” said Fred, as though suddenly making a new discovery, though of course it was just for show, since they had clearly been planning the demonstration for a while. “And you can't get back in once you're out. See?” He raised a hand to the golden barrier, but it merely shimmered, and his hand remained on the surface. “That applies to everyone, so you won't have any Muggles wandering into the battlefield.”

“And to take it down?” asked Ernie. “I mean, you can take it down, right?”

“Of course.” George looked slightly affronted at the idea that they would have created something that they could not undo. “Simply speak the unlocking spell, either from inside the dome or out. Anyone can do that, which is why it's important that the word be kept secret. In this case, it's 'Weasley.' ”

The dome collapsed, and Hermione and Severus stepped out, both looking slightly winded.   
“Amazing,” said Hermione. “We tried apparating, making a portkey, stepping out, then we just went for the option of blasting the thing. None of it worked.”

“Even my Dark Curses couldn't get us out,” said Severus. “Impressive.”

Fred and George exchanged delighted looks. They'd never had quite that much praise from Snape in their lives!

“How long will the shield last if no-one unlocks it?” asked Seamus practically. “I mean, there must be a point when the batteries die out, right?”

Fred and George looked rather confused. “Batteries? Oh, the Muggle things. Yes. It takes around 48 hours for the magic stored in the lodestones to run its course. More than long enough for your battle.”

And so, the final workings of the plan began to take shape.

X

As they ended that evening, Seamus, who had not been able to get to any of the recent meetings, stopped Hermione as she was leaving with a touch on her arm.

“Hermione, I just wondered... what was that letter that McGonagall gave me for you when I was in Australia? I know it's none of my business really, being personal and all, but she just seemed so worried over it. Is everything OK?”

Hermione laughed aloud. “Do you know, I'd quite forgotten about it? You'd just given it to me when I got called to the Dark Lord, and I never remembered it until now. I'll have a look tonight, but I'm sure it's nothing serious, or she would have told you.”

In truth, Hermione was rather more worried about her oversight than she let on. She'd been forgetting things a lot lately, and it was very unlike her.


	20. Chapter 20

“I have found the answer,” said Voldemort smugly. Hermione was rather surprised at his tone – over their past few weeks of golem-practice meetings she had become used to anger, haughtiness, and curiosity, but smugness was something new.

“My lord, please share your wisdom with me,” she fawned.

“Are you familiar with the name Appolinus?”

As a matter of fact, Hermione was. He was a potioneer from the Early Roman period, famed for being Julius Ceasar's personal wizard, though Muggle history had long since forgotten him. It had been a rhetorical question, however, and the Dark Lord was now continuing in his lecture, oblivious to her. She had established that he rather liked the sound of his own voice (possibly a feature common to all dictators), and fulfilling the role of teacher seemed to give him some kind of perverse pleasure – knowing more than others, and being able to share only what he chose. 

“It is of no consequence,” he was saying. “It requires a scholarly mind and a greater intelligence than you possess in order to be interested in all facets of magic as I am. The fact remains, that Appolonius devised a way of extending his enchantments across all of Ceasar's legions, through using this mark.”

He drew a simple pentacle in the sand, with a line stretching from the centre outwards towards each point of the star. “You will stand in the centre of this pentacle, and speak this chant as you use your wand to create my golems. The pentacle will channel and amplify your power, allowing them to move beyond your range of merely a few feet without losing their power. It will also give each golem greater strength, so that they will be able to use more complex spells than mere stunners. Here, stand.”

Hermione stood in the centre of the circle. The parchment he had given her to read from seemed more a series of nonsense syllables than any spell she had ever heard of.

Carefully, she began her usual set of spells, her movements by now so practiced that she could do them without thinking. As she did so, Hermione read aloud.

Something new was happening. Rather than simply turning into men, each of her piles of sand to make a golem was swirling, whirling round in a miniature tornado, converging on the centre, until suddenly all was quiet. Voldemort stood in a circle of protection which he had drawn for himself. Hermione collapsed, panting in her pentacle, which was now glowing a bright green.

Two hundred and fifty identical golems stood, watching her, awaiting instructions.

“Good,” said Lord Voldemort. “Now,” he motioned to a flock of sheep which stood on the crest of a hill at the other end of the beach, grazing. “Tell them to kill the sheep.”

Hermione only had to think the command, and the golems were already turning away, marching in an eerie formation towards the distant hillock. Clearly this pentacle was working – they were definitely further away than she had ever seen them now, and not one of the golems looked on the verge of collapsing back into the sand. 

Hermione watched aghast as the first golem to come within range drew a wand from its sleeve, and cast aloud, “Avada Kedavra!”

A sheep fell dead.

Had that been in the orders? She supposed that a golem would choose the most expedient form of fulfilling its orders, and since it now had the power to cast a killing curse... 

A hail of green rain began to fall on the sheep, as more and more of them began bleating and running in circles, seeing their comrades dying around them.

“Step outside the pentacle, Helena,” commanded Lord Voldemort. She'd almost forgotten that he was there, in the wonder and horror of her creations' autonomy.

“But my lord, the golems will collapse!”

“Are you questoning my orders?”

Hermione stepped outside the diagram, which vanished, leaving only a faint green smoke rising up from the sand.

But the golems did not vanish. They continued killing sheep, one by one. It was a horrible sight. They were now standing among the remains of the flock, so the most expedient way to kill a sheep was to literally rip it apart.

“Why haven't they stopped?” whispered Hermione, shocked and disgusted, her voice betraying her.

Not that Voldemort noticed. He was too filled with childish glee. “They will not stop now, until they have fulfilled their purpose and every sheep is dead. The pentacle bound the magic to the sand, so that even if I were to kill you right now, the golems would continue to do their work. They live only to fulfil that one destiny.”

He seemed only to be pleased by this hideous prospect.

Hermione was nodding and smiling, and muttering, with “My Lord”s liberally interspersed in the nonsense as she knelt on the sand.

“You, Helena, will be the greatest of my Death Eaters. You have heard me speak of my plans for election night?” 

Hermione thought she knew where this was going, and she didn't like it one bit. “My lord, my lord, I live to serve.” 

“Yessss,” he hissed. “Helena, on that night I will gather all the Death Eaters to hear me announce the Dawn of a New age, with me as supreme ruler of Muggles and Wizards both!”

“My lord!”

“Yes. Lucius will have won control of the Muggle hordes. We will cement that control through fear! He will be the figurehead for other Muggle governments, so that they cannot interfere with my plans for Britain! Once I have finished my speech on that night, we shall herald the might of my new world, together!

“You will unveil this Golem Death Eater Army, and all golems will be enchanted with but one command – to kill all Muggles in their path! And we shall wreak bloodshed across London.... those poor, stupid creatures will have no choice but to fall in to line, once we have destroyed their capital! 60 million Muggles, all as slaves to Wizards!”

“Oh, my Lord, your plan is great,” said Hermione, burying her feelings deep in her mind, behind layers of Occlumency. “They shall finally be put in their place!”

He motioned to her. “Arise, my daughter. Two weeks hence, on the sixth of June, your golems will herald the dawning of a new age. The age of Lord Voldemort.”


	21. Chapter 21

“He wants what?” Ron was incredulous.

Hermione sighed. How many times would they have to go through this? “He's found a way to channel my power through a pentacle. He's going to order me to command the golems to kill all Muggles. Basically, they're going to decimate London, then he's going to use the political chaos that that will create to install Lucius as a figurehead dictator, with him the power behind the scenes. He's going to destroy all of the Muggle UK's infrastructure in one fell swoop.”

A silence fell.

“Well, we can't let that happen,” said Neville in a businesslike tone. “We've only two weeks until the election now – what can we do to stop it? I presume we still need Malfoy to win.”

“Yes,” nodded Harry slowly. “I think so. Ice-cream Eaters all in one place, when he makes the speech at midnight, is still our best bet.”

“We're still going to use Fred and George's net to contain them, then?” that was Colin, usually so quiet. He seemed to have found his voice more recently, with the end so near.

Hannah was hesitant. “I don't suppose – Hermione – if you can order them to kill all Muggles, can't you just order them to kill all Ice-Cream Eaters instead?”

Hermione went quiet. “That – I mean – I don't know how they'd be able to recognise it unless.. Oh!” she turned suddenly to Fred and George. “The net – your system of resonance with the Dark Mark – I wonder if I could incorporate that into the charms in the Golems?”

Seamus clapped his hands, gleeful. “Yes! That way, they'd go after that.”

George nodded slowly. “Yes... I suppose so. You'd need to use your Mark to anchor the resonances, though, if you were going to combine it with other spells. Otherwise, the Golems would end up rejecting all the other charms on them.”

Hermione got out her wand, conjured up a piece of paper and pen, and began writing out a long and complex Arithmantic formula. She waved a hand, which the rest of the Order (except Severus) knew meant that they should carry on without her. Severus himself soon got the message, as she was ignoring him, and went to the sideboard to pour himself another scotch. George went over to her corner and they muttered away together, combining the formulae for the twins' Dark Mark resonance spell with her golem charms.

“So,” said Harry. “Assuming that they manage that, which I'm sure they will, what with Hermione being brilliant and all, how does that alter the plans for June 6th?”

“Hannah and I will still have to lay out the net around the Malfoy party HQ on the first, as planned,” said Susan. “The net's still integral to the plans.”

“That's true,” said Draco. “Except that Severus, Hermione and I will need to be outside of it before it closes.”

“Why?” Ernie.

“Because from what I know of Arithmancy, and I did a NEWT in it, it's much harder to write single exceptions to a rule than it is to make it blanket coverage,” explained Draco with his trademark sneer. “So when she tells them to go after anything with a Dark Mark, that means anything.”

“We could give you Portkeys,” said Hannah.

“Too powerful,” said Severus shortly. “The Dark Lord would sense the magic as soon as I got anywhere near him. And as a high-ranking inner circle member, I'm likely to be standing right next to him.”

“You could just run for it as soon as he started talking,” offered Ernie. 

“And get killed before I could move ten feet? No, thanks.” Severus sneered nastily. Sometimes, thought Neville, order meeting with him were like being back in first year potions.

“So your best chance is probably apparition,” said Harry.

“But Voldemort can recall us to his side either way, as soon as he notices we're gone.” Draco looked worried. “We have to get out so quickly and quietly that he won't even realise we're gone! Besides, how do we know when to go? I mean, when you're going to raise the net.”

Colin spoke up once more. “What if you knew when to get out, because it was you two who raised the net?”

All heads turned to him, and he blushed a deep red. “I mean, what if Malfoy and Snape agree on a time – say, 1 am, when Big Ben strikes, and both apparate to just outside the ring. Then, they say the words which raise the net, immediately, so Voldemort doesn't have time to call them. I mean, if it blocks all communication, it should also block his call to them, right?”

“Theoretically,” said Fred. “I mean, his magic should just rebound when it hits the barrier, not getting through to either of them at all.”

“That might just work,” said Harry. “I'll bet Voldemort won't bother putting up anti-apparition wards, because he'll think it's just him and his cronies. And the rest of us could still get in and out....”

“What about Hermione?” interjected Severus suddenly. “It's all very well making these nice little plans, but I'm not leaving her behind.”

“You wouldn't have to.” The woman herself, carrying a piece of parchment clutched to her chest, crossed the room with George to rejoin the conversation. “I've run the Arithmancy – I can make myself the only exception to the rule, because it'll be my mark which establishes the resonance. So effectively, the order is to “kill all others with marks”. I should be safe.”

“ 'Should be' is not good enough,” Severus said quietly. She shot him a look, clearly saying we'll talk about this later.

“What about the rest of us, then?” asked Ron. “If Hermione's golems are going to do all the work, what the hell have we spent ten years training for?”

“I think you all need to be there anyway,” said Hermione. “Remember, there'll be Muggles inside the building, panicking. They need protection. Also, some of the Death Eaters will be strong enough to overwhelm the golems. They can be destroyed!” 

Susan was nodding. “Besides, Harry needs to fight Voldemort himself, according to the Prophecy.”

Hermione rolled her eyes, but said nothing.

“I don't like that Severus and I will be stuck outside the circle doing nothing, though,” said Draco sullenly. “If the golems can be destroyed, can't we take our chances inside, helping out?”

“No!” said Harry and Hermione in unison.

“Look,” said Hermione placatingly, “they can be destroyed, and I have no doubt whatsoever that each of you could do it. But that would be taking more golems out of play, leaving less of them to pick off the other Death Eaters – you know, the ones that we actually want dead.”

They nodded reluctantly, seeing the logic in this.

Harry added, “this way has the added benefit, Draco, of making sure that you're in no danger of getting angry and attacking your father. I refuse to have you dying of that stupid vow!” Draco scowled, but acquiesced.

“Besides, you'll be needed to patrol the outside of the building. I'm sure that not all of Voldemort's sympathisers are Marked! Make sure that anyone coming out with a wand is incapacitated, and that all the Muggles are catalogued, just in case they're not actually Muggles..” 

Harry rubbed his hands together. “That's settled then! At the beginning of June, Hannah and Susan are in charge of laying down the Lodestones around the building. Make sure they're slightly underground, so they're well hidden.”

The girls nodded, having been through this several times over the past few weeks. 

“We'll apparate the Order to just outside the circle at midnight. The Flobberworm's speech should start then. As soon as he finishes, and tells Hermione to step into the pentacle, Severus and Draco disapparate to – where?”

“Just outside the pub opposite the front doors,” said Draco promptly. “Unfortunately, it's called the Red Lion, but I'm sure that we two Slytherins can manage for a couple of minutes.” He made a face.

“Since you're both dating Gryffindors,” said Harry with a smirk, “I should hope so.”

Ron looked faintly ill, Draco grinned, and Severus looked murderous. All as per usual, then thought Neville tiredly. 

“Has anyone actually thought,” came a small voice from the corner. Susan. “About the ethics of killing all the Ice-cream Eaters. As opposed to say, capturing them and giving them a fair trial?”

Hermione paused. She had a point. What had they become, that no one in the room had objected to this beforehand? But then, this was war. There were no easy options.

“I can't do it,” she said quietly. “Capture – it's an order too complex for the golems to understand, especially when they have to capture people with a Dark Mark. I mean – killing is simple: something's either alive or it's not, but capture – how does a pile of sand know whether the Death Eater will be able to escape or not? They'd either end up using too much force and killing them, or two little and they'd be completely ineffectual. That's why, even in the room, their orders were only ever “stun”, and that the plots have always been slightly simplistic.”

Hermione shuddered at her own words. She wasn't entirely sure, but she thought that she'd just advocated mass murder. What had she become?

“H is right,” said Severus. “We cannot risk them escaping. The organisation has too deep a hold in the wizarding world – we need to completely cut out this cancer in order to start again.”

There were a series of nods around the room. 

“You know that that sounds a hell of a lot like a justification for genocide?” Hannah responded quietly.

“Yes.” Severus was firm. “But in this case, it's them or us.”

She bowed her head. “I suppose.”

Draco looked belligerently around the room. “Anyone else got a problem with putting these murdering bastards to the death they deserve?”

No one spoke.


	22. Chapter 22

The night of June the sixth was clear. Hermione was thankful for that, at least, as she put on her smartest suit, ready to accept the results in her constituency. (Not that there was much of a question about it – she knew already, as did almost all of the Malfoy Party candidates, that she was going to win by a rather large margin.

“Are you sure you won't let me at least check over the Arithmancy once more time?” asked Severus. He'd effectively moved into the flat by now. She wondered whether he shouldn't be spending more time at Hogwarts – he was still its Headmaster, after all, but he assured her that it was effectively a Death Eater training camp, and the few teachers that remained were too evil to need or want supervision. She'd very carefully not been to visit him there, after that description.

Voldemort probably knew, from his intense spy network, that they were living together, but he made no mention of it. Since Hermione's sudden arrival and instantaneous elevation to the upper echelons of the inner circle, they had become quite the Death Eater power couple, much to the chagrin of the Lestranges, whom they had supplanted.

“No, Severus,” said Hermione, looking at him in the mirror. “I know you're good, but you've seen the figures, and I'm sorry but you just don't have the grasp of the Muggle Physics required to get through them! You know this, we've had the conversation. I've told you the result – as the central point of the resonance, the waves cancel out at me, so I'll be the only Death Eater in the room safe from the Golems. The pentacle will amplify the power to them, so they'll be shooting Killing Curses at everyone else with a Mark, including Voldemort, though he'll probably be able to stop them. He can't get rid of all of them at once though, because he's not the centre of their nexus – as their maker, I am. But, it should buy Harry time to get in there and kill him.”

He came up behind her, “I know, I know. And Macmillan and Weasley's main task is to protect you in the pentacle, while the rest of the Order deals with the remaining Death Eaters. I just don't like the fact that Draco and I have to stay outside, playing watchman, while the real battle's going on within the circle.”

“But you know that it's the only way,” said Hermione, kissing his neck. “Anyway, you're the only one who knows the passwords to set up and take down the nexus, so you'd better stay safe. I have no intention of being stuck in that horrible concrete building for two days, dying of thirst!”

They both knew that it probably wouldn't come to that.

“I love you,” said Severus suddenly. “I... love you. Somehow, Hermione Granger, I've fallen in love with you and I don't want to lose you. Stay safe tonight.”

Hermione was gobsmacked. That, she hadn't been expecting. They were not the kind of people to talk about feelings, and so the words had remained unsaid. To hear them now, on the eve of battle...

He coughed lightly. “Ahem?”

She turned in his arms, and, looking into his eyes, said in return: “I love you too, Severus Snape. Please remember that, whatever happens. That I love you more than the world.” She blinked a little. “And I will see you tomorrow morning, after all this is over, and we will both be safe and happy and well.”

After a few more minutes, the clock chimed the hour. Six pm, time to go.

Hermione disentangled herself. “I'll just get my robes,” she said.

She shut the bedroom door behind her, leaning back on it with a sigh. She hated all of this. At least all the subterfuge and pretence was almost over.

Carefully, she removed three envelopes from her knicker drawer where she had secreted them, and laid them out neatly on the dresser. With her usual attention to detail, she made sure that the corners were straight and in line with one another, before turning around, straightening her shoulders, and exiting back to the lounge where Severus waited. Just in time, she remembered to pick up her Death Eater robes from the chair where they were strewn.

She minimised them, and placed them in her handbag. Ready.

With one final kiss, Hermione Granger and Severus Snape apparated away: he to Malfoy Manor, she to the town hall of Flydale North. They would meet again at midnight, at the Malfoy Party townhouse in Central London, for Voldemort's victory speech.

X

Hannah Abbott was also taking leave of a lover. Dan, however, having no idea that she could be leaving for her death, was far more sanguine about the whole thing. Not for the first time, she cursed Hermione's secrecy spells, which forbade her even suggesting anything about where she might be going.

“See you tomorrow!” he said cheerfully.

She kissed him.

“You know I love you, right? A lot. Whatever happens, remember that.”

“Yeah, love you too babes. Have fun at Milly's.”

She kissed him again.

“I really, really love you. Goodbye, Dan.”

He frowned a little. 

“You're not leaving me or anything, right? 'Cos you sound like you're going to the trenches or something, not just over to your mate's for girly night in.”

She gave a forced laugh.

“No! I must just be hormonal or something.”

His face cleared. Men, she thought. “Well, say hi to Milly for me.”

With one last peck on the cheek, he shut the door, and she drove away. It was only once she'd started the engine that the tears began to fall.

X  
Susan was waiting rather impatiently for her outside the house.

“Come on! It's nearly nine.” She pulled her jacket more tightly around her – it was only June after all, and not exactly tropical weather, despite the late-evening sun.

“Not my fault – try living in a place with more parking spaces next time!” 

They were both on edge, which made the ten minute walk to the station rather strained. Each woman picked up the Evening Standard newspaper as she passed the now nearly empty stand, in order to have an excuse not to talk to the other.

This proved particularly useful when they finally reached the empty warehouse, only a couple of streets away from the townhouse that Malfoy was using as his political base. Harry had hired it months ago for the occasion.

As Susan let herself in with the large key, turning off the alarm with the fob, Hannah reflected on how ugly and depressing the building really was. It was a squat thing, at odds with the Georgian splendour of its surroundings. It almost looked as though someone had thought of the least fitting thing to put in that space, and dropped it there from above. One almost expected the whole warehouse to slink off in shame at any minute, and there was indeed a sense of discomfort in the slightly crooked grey metal shutters on the windows. Hannah was suddenly very glad indeed that they'd only be spending one evening there.

Inside there was nothing but a few empty crates, scattered across the concrete floor like tumbleweed in a cowboy movie. Ernie had suggested getting some drinks in, to relax people before the battle, but it was generally agreed by the others that to meet real live Death Eaters in a state of inebriation was possibly not the smartest idea.

Susan looked at her watch. “It's ten thirty. The order'll be portkeying in at midnight. I suppose that all we can do now is wait.”

X

Harry tapped his foot impatiently. “Jimmy, what the hell's taking so long?!” he shouted up the ornate marble staircase. The gold plated cherubim which were engraved on the bannister seemed to stare at him accusingly for disturbing them in such a manner, but Harry'd always thought that they were ugly anyway, so he didn't really care much.

There was a muffled shout from above, but no discernible increase in the speed of the other man's arrival.

Beside him, Draco let out an irritated huff of air. “I thought we were picking up Weasley on the way, not waiting half an hour for him to finish banging his girlfriend before we could go!”

Harry winced. “That's not it, I'm sure that they're just...”

But at that moment, Ron finally arrived, black hair mussed and lips slightly swollen, with a slightly goofy grin on his face. Draco shot Harry a look which clearly said I told you so.

“Sorry lads,” he said, not sounding sorry at all. “I just had to... finish off.”

With Harry and Draco still rolling their eyes, they made their way down to Ron's gold-plated Bentley. Really, thought Draco, as he struggled to get comfortable on one of the leopard-print seats. This, and a hot pink Mercedes Benz? The man had an appalling taste for kitsch.

Ron tapped imperiously on the screen which separated them from Andy, their driver. “Malfoy House,” he said. “And make it quick – we've got a party to get to!”

As they walked up the red carpet to the double doors, Harry noticed Colin and his camera among the paparazzi. Giving him a particularly large smile, and a raise of the hand in encouragement, he turned away and entered the lion's den. Or, perhaps more accurately in this case, the snake's pit.

X

Ernie, Seamus and Neville had been the ones dispatched to collect the remaining order members from the Weasley house in Italy. Ernie in particular had not been too upset by this, since it meant that the three of them had the change to spend a week in Rome beforehand, sampling all of the pleasures of that city. Three evidently well-off bachelors had no problems with finding amusements to pass the time. And the food was, of course, beyond compare.

Now, however, they had just entered the living room of the house as agreed: half-past midnight local time, so that everything would be organised for their arrival at midnight in England.

The room was crammed with so many people that the furniture could hardly be seen. They were chattering and talking, and wandering nervously between groups. Seamus saw the remaining Weasleys in one corner, Tonks and Lupin nearby. Kingsley Shacklebolt was there, as was the deputation from Australia – McGonagall, Flitwick, Hagrid and Slughorn, as well as another five men and women, who he assumed must be the local-born teachers. He shared a quick smile with the pretty blonde girl who had delivered Hermione's letter. All around were more people whom he didn't recognise – perhaps fifty all together. The sheer range of accents which he could hear in the various conversations around him was all but deafening in itself.

Ernie was trying to get the room's attention. “Excuse me? People, we have to move here!”

But the room was too loud – no one was listening.

It was Neville who finally got fed up. Putting his wand to his throat, he suddenly yelled: “SHUT UP!”

It echoed through the suddenly silent room, the sonorus charm clearly having done its work well.

“Ahem.” Neville cleared his throat a little, but though blushing, looked undeterred. “Perhaps that was a little rude, but I've spent the last ten years dealing with university students. Anyway, we only have twenty minutes until we need to go, so would you all please just listen.”

Everyone was. Though Neville's voice remained unnaturally loud, there was almost no need for it now, since he held the attention of everyone there.

“This is the plan. We're going to portkey into a warehouse in London, a few streets away from Malfoy's HQ, at five minutes to midnight, local time. Harry and Ron are at a party there as we speak, and at midnight they'll apparate out untrobusively to give us any last updates on the status in there. 

Now, I think that Fred and George have already explained the outline of the plan, and given you the groups in which you will be working, correct?” 

His stern tone sounded so much like one of the professors that even withches and wizards twenty eyears older than him found themseves chorusing “yes” like schoolchildren, much to Seamus and Ernie's amusement. Neville looked slightly nonplussed at the response, but rallied.

“Good. At midnight, you'll take your places surrounding the building, ready to enter it on the signal. Now then. Not all of you know this, but Severus Snape and Draco Malfoy have both been working for us.”

There was a chorus of gasps and mutters, but Neville ignored them.

“I don't care about your personal affiliations, likes and dislikes – we're all working for a common cause. At a pre-arranged signal, they will apparate out of the building, and a golden net will go up, covering it. That's your cue to go in. Now, this net is going to keep anyone with a Dark Mark inside, so we should have them cornered. We shoot to kill.”

A murmur went round the room, but no one demurred. These people had been exiles for ten years, and mercy was not at the forefront of their minds at the moment.

Neville pointed to the photograph he held in his hand, and enlarged it to cover one wall. Perhaps Hermione's primary school science teacher would have been amused to see himself, looking fearsome, gazing down over a gathering of witches and wizards. He would certainly have been surprised.

“This is a very complex illusion, created by Hermione Granger,” explained Neville. “You will see two hundred and fifty copies of this man, all wearing green robes, when you enter the room. Do not panic. These men will be shooting aiming to kill Death Eaters only – if you do not have a Dark Mark, you will be safe, they will ignore you. Just do not get in their way when they're aiming the Killing curse.”

An oriental looking woman spoke up. “An illusion, casting the killing curse? How is that possible?”

McGonagall was the one to reassure the room. “I do not know of this magic, but if anyone can accomplish such miracles, it would be Hermione Granger, the brightest witch of a generation. There will be time enough later to examine the whys and wherefores – for now, I believe that we have a war to win.” She nodded to Neville to continue.

Neville bowed to her. “Very well put, professor. Ernie – if you please.”

“That was quite some speech,” said Lupin quietly.

“Thank you,” said Neville, equally quietly. He was no longer blushing – Neville Longbottom had grown up, and was no longer embarrassed by who and what he was.

Pleased to finally have his moment in the spotlight, Ernie stepped forward. “It's time to portkey. Are we all ready?”

He held up a ball of blue fluffy wool, and began unravelling it. Holding on to one end, he passed it to Neville, the Seamus, who passed it to the Australian witch, who passed it on, until everyone was holding on to the string. 

Seamus looked at his watch. “Three.... two.... one...”

X

At a few minutes to midnight, Harry met Ron's gaze across the crowded room, and nodded to him almost imperceptibly. It had been a rather uneventful night so far – just another one of the boring political gatherings which they had become so used to, except that this one was punctuated by intermittent news of another constituency won, at which there would be a polite round of applause, and Lucius Malfoy would raise his hands in acknowledgement. There was, as they had expected, no warding beyond the usual Malfoy spells on the building – Voldemort felt secure in this, his moment of triumph. Draco and Severus had counted four hundred Marked Death Eaters in the room, out of about the six hundred people present. That was a large number, but the room was definitely big enough to hold them. 

It must have been magically extended, though none of the muggles in the room seemed to notice. The “Great Audience Hall” as it was fancifully termed, had to be twice the size of the Hogwarts hall which Harry remembered from his youth. But there was no gleaming night sky on the ceiling here, just a repeated pattern – the Malfoy crest in gold filigree. There were columns in a neo-classical style all around the outside of the room, at the edges of alcoves in which currently stood waiters bearing trays and trays of drinks. To add to the grecian theme, in each corner of the room stood a huge black urn, stretching to the very top of the high ceiling. They were impressive, but somehow also terrifying in their very blackness. 

Towards one end of the hall there was a large balcony, which stretched above the crowd below. This was for the upper echelons, and was a Death Eater only zone. Harry, with his seeker's eyesight, could just about make out Hermione and Severus, talking to a tall cloaked man and several other people wearing robes. The elder Malfoy was standing at the edge of the balcony, looking down over his dominion. Probably searching for his son, thought Harry. Time to go, then.

He turned to Draco, who was beside him. “I guess this is it, then.” He made sure that his expression betrayed nothing, in case any of the Death Eaters in the room were watching.

Draco nodded. “I love you. Be safe, and get the bastard once and for all,” he said, hardly moving his mouth. Then, he kissed Harry on the lips. A few of the more conservative politicians turned away.

With a small smile, Harry retreated into one of the darkest alcoves, in a corner. Its waiter had just wandered off to offer some more drinks to a very portly, very drunk muggle in the middle of the crowd. Once he was sure that no-one was paying him any attention, as Lucius was announcing to the room that he'd just taken Edinburgh, he disappeared with a small pop, lost among the cheers to everyone but Draco.

X

It was a few moments later that Ron appeared beside him, outside the warehouse. “I had to wait for some bloody muggle to finish at the urinal before I could get away,” he said. “He kept trying to persuade me to give him an autograph.”

Harry waved it away. “It doesn't matter, now. Let's go.”

He threw open the doors with a bang, and entered into the room, now full of order members with their wands out. 

Since he no longer looked like the boy-who-lived they remembered, Harry raised his wand and said aloud: “Expecto Patronum!” A brilliant stag burst from the end of his wand, and galloped around the room, bringing a small bit of peace and calmness to all it touched.

“Harry Potter!” rose the cry, echoing through the empty warehouse. Susan and Hannah were very glad of the silencing spells and wards which they had added before the others arrived.

Harry raised his hands in acknowledgement and supplication. Seeing a crate on the floor, he stood on it. 

No one could say that Harry Potter wasn't a very good showman when he chose, mused Ron. He was impressed. It'd been years since he'd seen Harry in what his younger self used to jealously term “hero-mode”. Only in his head, of course.

“Yes, I'm Harry Potter,” he said. “I'm not going to make a speech – you don't need one. We all know what we're here to do – end this, once and for all. You all know where your positions are, you all know what you need to do. Just remember this – we're not just fighting for us. We're fighting for our children, and our children's children. We're fighting for all those who weren't lucky enough to escape, for all those whom we have lost.” His eyes lingered on the Weasleys. “We're fighting for all those who have been living under a tyrannical and evil rule for the last ten years. We're fighting for the freedom of the Wizarding world. This is the Order's last stand. Tonight, we'll defeat him, or we'll die trying.”

The roar was so deafening that you'd have thought there was a football stadium's worth of people in that room, rather than just fifty.

X

Little did Harry know, as he was making his speech, Voldemort was making another. It had not been thirty seconds since Harry left the room, when suddenly it burst into light, and the cloaked man threw off his disguise.

The snake-like eyes surveyed the room, much as Lucius Malfoy's had done moments before. 

Hermione and Severus, having known was was coming, squeezed each others' hands tightly, before separating. Hermione stepped forward, to just behind the Dark Lord, next to Lucius and Bellatrix (who looked really rather upset by her exalted position). At the same time, Severus began surreptitiously backing away, melding into the crowd of black-robed Death Eaters.

There were a few screams from down below, as the Muggles present took in the fact that there was a monster standing above them, talking. These were quickly muffled by the Death Eaters in the crowd, who, far outnumbering the Muggles, made quick work of silencing and capturing them in cruel bonds of fire which burned their skin. The Death Eaters were under orders not to kill yet, however. Voldemort wanted some Muggles to survive, to hear about his plans.

“My friendssssss,” he hissed.

The room was silent, filled with anticipation. “The hour of the new world has come!”

A cheer rang through the room. Hermione smiled grimly, beside him. That was certainly true.

“Tonight, we shall destroy London! Tonight, you will witness the arising of my new army. Too long I have directed from the shadows – now, behold the rise of Lord Voldemort!”

He waved his wand, and the Dark Mark shot out of the end, to more cheers.

“My faithful servant, Helena, your time has come,” said the Dark Lord. “Step into the light of your Lord Voldemort, and create my army!” Hermione did not hear the two small pops of apparition, but she was instantly aware through the Mark that Draco and Severus, to whom she had become most attuned, were no longer in the room. She hoped that they got the net up before anyone else noted the same thing.

Lord Voldemort had burned the pentacle of Appolonius into the floor of the balcony. Good.

He raised a hand, and suddenly, the four urns at the edges of the room smashed with a loud bang, which startled even many of the Death Eaters. A torrent of black sand fell from them, knocking over people and furniture alike. The crowd rose, coughing and muttering.

Then, all was silent.

Hermione took a deep breath. It seemed to be the loudest sound in the universe.

Then, she stepped into the pentacle, raised her wand, and began to cast.


	23. Chapter 23

Severus and Draco startled the two Muggles drinking beers outside the Red Lion when they suddenly appeared out of thin air in front of them. They did not have time to worry about the Statutes of Secrecy, however.

“Ready?” asked Draco. He raised his wand.

Severus nodded. 

Draco said loudly: “As heir apparent to all that is of the Malfoys, I remove all the magic on this Malfoy house.” He made a complicated motion with his wand. 

As soon as he'd finished, Severus raised his own wand and said simply: “Propan-1-one.”

A glimmering golden net suddenly sprang up in front of them.

Draco looked at his godfather as though he'd gone mad. “What kind of a word is that?”

“Muggle Chemistry term. Unlikely to be used by anyone around here, tonight.”

Draco nodded. “Good thinking.”

They drew their wands and prepared to deal with whatever came through that net.

X

Harry was standing with Ron and Ernie by one of the back doors, when he felt the wards fall. 

There was just time to think:

Oh fuck. This is it.

Then, the golden net was up. 

“Go, go, go!”

There was no more thinking now. They had emerged onto a battlefield.

X

A few moments earlier... 

Hermione stepped into the circle, and began to cast, arms outstretched and wand raised. An eerie wind filled the still-silent room, twisting the black sand into a thousand tiny tornados, higher, faster, bigger... The people below were coughing, black sand entering their lungs....

And then, it was gone. Two hundred golems stood dotted about the room amongst the crowd, including the Inner Circle Death Eaters on the balcony. Their emerald green robes swayed in a non-existent breeze.

“Behold!” said Lord Voldemort. “My army!”

“Ahem,” said Hermione quietly. 

The whole room was staring at her, amazed that she'd dared to interrupt the Dark Lord.

“They're not yours.”

“What?”

“My name is Hermione Jane Granger. My best friends are Harry Potter and Ronald Weasley. I'm in love with Severus Snape. And this is not your army. It's mine. And it's the army that's going to destroy you.”

The Dark Lord spluttered. “What is this treachery? You will die now!”

He raised his wand, but Hermione was faster, casting a shield charm which shimmered in the air around her. His curse rebounded.

“No. You're the one who thought of the pentacle – it amplifies my magic, remember? And if I'm going to die here tonight, I'm damn well going to have the chance to make a speech first. I've been living in hiding for ten long years, Tom Marvolo Riddle. And you will hear me now.”

The room seemed almost to bend under the force of her will. The entire crowd stood spellbound, not quite able to believe that this was actually happening.

“See, Tom,” Hermione said conversationally. “Thing is, I'm a politician by trade, and the one thing that every politician gets is a farewell speech at the end of their time in office. So here's mine. 

You destroyed my world when I was just discovering it. I've spent my adult life hiding from you, planning your end. You never got rid of the Order of the Phoenix, Tom. We were smarter than you. This is our sunrise. We're taking back the Wizarding World.

And these golems, now. Thank you, for giving me the idea. You want them to kill? Oh, they'll kill all right. Goodbye!”

Hermione raised her wand, tapped her Dark Mark, and shut her eyes. A wave of power spread outwards from the pentacle, touching on everything there. Everyone in the room, wizard and muggle, felt a sudden breeze. The golems suddenly had their purpose. Instilled with all of Hermione's magic, they knew what they had to do. “Kill the Death Eaters.”

All over the room, the golems turned, quick as lightning, and began firing the Killing Curse. Some of the Death Eaters, faster off the mark than the rest, had time to dodge and escape, but for others, it was already too late.

On the balcony, Bellatrix and Lucius were desperately fighting three golems, back to back. Lord Voldemort was looking around, confused. He seemed to have lost all sense of what was going on, now that his plans were falling apart before his eyes.

Hermione herself had not opened her eyes. She didn't need to, she knew what was coming.

As soon as she had given the order, to kill anything with a Dark Mark, the nearest golem stepped into the pentacle. It was not hampered by the shield – they were both made of the same stuff – Hermione's magic.

By setting up the resonance to her own Dark Mark as the order, Hermione had made herself the prime target for her own creations.

The golem walked solemnly towards her. No killing curse here – a person could not cast it on themselves, and the golems were the extension of Hermione's will. Instead, it reached out one, pale hand, and with a superhuman strength reached into her chest and ripped out her heart. The other golems barely noticed as their maker collapsed. They had but one purpose, now. Kill the Death Eaters.

It was just then that the fifty Order members waiting in the wings burst into the hall. Harry and Ron apparated straight on to the balcony, next to Hermione. With cries of horror, they saw what had happened. The golem, having succeeded in its task, had moved on, and started to aim for Voldemort, who destroyed it in a pillar of fire. Ignoring the battle going on around them, Harry and Ron knelt down, cradling her dying body between them. 

“I thought you were the exception!” Ron moaned. 

Hermione's last breath came out as a little chuckle. “Honestly, Ron. I lied.”

And with that, Hermione Granger was no more.

X

Bellatrix Lestrange, having dispatched her golems, noticed them. “The Mudblood is dead!” she called. 

Ron, losing his temper, leapt to his feet. “I'll give you Mudblood, you filthy inbred cow!”

They began to duel, curses flying fast and thick between them, like a deadly lightning storm.

X

Harry felt the tears in his eyes. He looked up at Voldemort, fighting off several golems at once. He was slower now, confused.

Time to end this. No more speeches.

Harry Potter stood up. A space seemed to clear between the Dark Lord and himself, as Voldemort made the last of the golems fighting him crumble to ash. 

He would not have known it, but the magic and his anger had made his true appearance return. His hair, which had always objected to being changed or cut, lost its redness and became black and messy once more. On his forehead, where the Muggle surgeon had worked so hard, a lightning shaped scar was fading back into sight. The Muggle footballer was gone, in his place a very angry wizard.

They walked towards each other. In his peripheral vision, Harry was vaguely aware that there were other things going on in the room. McGonagall, battling a gaggle of Death Eaters, hair coming unbound from its customary bun. Mr. and Mrs. Weasley, fighting back to back. All over the room, Order members, fighting and dying for the cause of freedom.

But he did not take his eyes off Riddle. 

“Harry Potter,” came the hiss.

“Tom Riddle,” he replied with an equanimity that he did not feel.

With a sudden fluidity of motion, as though both thinking together, Voldemort and Harry raised their wands in tandem, each shouting “Avada Kedavra!”.

Just as they had in that graveyard so long ago, the brother wands met, a jet of green light uniting them. One green bead, glowing brighter than the rest, sat midway between the two of them. 

Through sheer force of will, Harry began to push it towards Voldemort. He felt some resistance, but it was nothing that he couldn't handle. He simply took deep breaths, thinking of why he was doing this, all those he had lost, and all those he was not going to lose to this madman.

His parents.

Sirius.

Dumbledore.

Ginny. 

Little Dennis Creevy.

The pair of them rose into the air above the balcony, the sheer power crackling between them defying gravity.

Percy.

Bill.

Hermione.

The bead was inching closer and closer to Voldemort's wand, now. A sheen of sweat was visible on that grey, snakelike brow.

“You have no power that I know not!” he screamed desperately.

“Really?” said Harry. He'd been wondering about that bit of the prophecy too, but suddenly it came to him, all in a flash. “What about love? This is for the people that I've loved that you've taken from me. And for the people I love now, that I'm not letting you have. Ever. Do you love anyone or anything, Tom Riddle?”

He paused for a second, and cocked an eyebrow. “Oh, first on that second list is Draco Malfoy, by the way.”

As soon as he said the name, Harry felt a sudden burst of strength. The bead fairly shot the last few inches towards the Dark Lord. As soon as it touched Voldemort's wand, the beam of light vanished. 

There was a silence, for one, long, second. The world held its breath.

“Hah-” Voldemort began to say, but before he could complete the thought, his wand shattered. 

Then, with a cry of rage and pain which everyone in the room swore they would remember for the rest of their lives, Tom Marvolo Riddle, self-styled Dark Lord Voldemort, shattered into a million pieces and was blown away on an invisible, intangible wind.

Every surviving Death Eater in the room screamed, clutching their left arms, where the Dark Mark had vanished in a burst of white light. The Order members were quick to take advantage of their lapse in concentration, killing and incarcerating all those who remained. 

Severus and Draco, who had been helping a pair of Muggle waiters who had run out of the building at the first sign of the battle, were no exception. They both collapsed, shouting, much to the confusion of the poor Muggles, who ran off into the night, shouting about madmen and magic. 

Severus looked at his wrist. Pale, clear skin greeted him for the first time in thirty years. He would never admit it later, but a tear rolled down his cheek at that moment.

Draco looked towards the building. “Harry,” he said simply.

Back indoors, all the golems vanished, collapsing back into sand. There was no need for them now, their purpose was complete. There were no more Dark Marks, no more Death Eaters. They joined their mistress in oblivion.

The battle was won.


	24. Epilogue

The first of Hermione's three letters on the sideboard went undelivered for nearly two weeks. When Minerva McGonagall, feeling much older than she had in years, finally returned to Australia, confident that the clean-up of the Ministry was well under way under the uncompromising eyes of the next generation of the Order of the Phoenix, she carried it with her, giving it to the intended recipients.

 

_Dear Mum and Dad,_

_Thank you for your letter, which Minerva delivered to me through Seamus. I'm so sorry about what I had to do to your memories, and I'm very glad that Filius was able to restore them for you. I'm glad that you understand that I felt I had no choice. I had to protect you, but I had to protect the Wizarding World as well. I've missed you so much._

_I couldn't believe it, when I got your news. A sister! And a witch, too! How I wish that I could meet Ophelia. She sounds wonderful. Is she good at Charms? I always loved Charms. I know, I know, she's only eight, she'll hardly know what she's good at yet. Give her all my love._

_Tell Minerva that she definitely did the right thing by getting you to write to me – this has given me hope that not everything in life is connected to this damned war. Thank her for me, would you? And thank Filius for me, for restoring your memories as soon as you realised that Ophelia was a witch._

_So many thanks. I don't mean to be morbid, but I'll never be able to thank them in person, you see. I know that I'm not going to make it through tomorrow, you see. I've accepted that now, though I am immeasurably sad that I'm never going to see you two again. The thing is, this Cause, the freedom of my world, I've been fighting for it for so long, that I've forgotten what it is to be at peace. And I would do anything to free the people I love. That doesn't just mean Severus and Harry and Ron and all the rest of the Order – I'm including my new little sister too, the one that I didn't know I had until a week ago, and every other witch and wizard who will hopefully, because of tomorrow, be able to go to Hogwarts as I did, and learn the wonder of magic. Because it's beautiful, really, it is._

_Oh Mummy, I'm so scared. But it's worth it._

_I love you both so much._

_Hermione._

X

The second letter was given by Severus to Harry within twenty-four hours of the end of the battle. He did not look at the younger man as he did so, just thrust it at him and disapparated again. Harry read the letter, and his face turned stony. He showed it to Draco and Ron. This was the letter which was re-printed many times in later generations' history books, the letter which for many came to define the Second Voldemort War.

The envelope said simply: The Order of the Phoenix.

__

_Dear Harry, and Ron, and everyone else in the Order,_

_If you are reading this, then all the plans worked as I intended. I am dead, and Voldemort is defeated. Well done, Harry. I always knew you could do it._

_I knew as soon as I ran the Arithmancy that first time that the person whose Dark Mark created the resonance would have to die. They would become the central target for all the golems, a flashing neon light saying “DEATH EATER” if you will._

_That was why I didn't let anyone look at my calculations that first evening. By the time I let Severus look at it, I'd deliberately added in extraneous elements and symbols from Muggle Particle Physics which had nothing to do with the actual Arithmancy, but muddied the waters just enough that he believed my version of the answer._

_I'm not a martyr, but this is the only way. Hopefully, Voldemort was right (never thought I'd write that!) and even with my death, the golems' strength of purpose was enough that they kept going, killing at least a few of the Death Eaters, and buying you time, Harry, to get to him._

_My entreaty to you all, though, now. Please, let the killing stop. Somehow, I've found myself sanctioning mass genocide of all the Death Eaters with this plan. When did I stoop to suggesting murder, let alone planning and carrying it out? We didn't take enough care about the Muggles in the room, even. Some of them must have died. I didn't even factor them in, except as possible distractions. Isn't that callous? It's terrible._

_We've spent too long fighting, Harry. Hiding, planning every move out. It's not been healthy, Harry, but it was necessary. When you've finally killed him, you'll have to take control. Just be careful, not to cross that line into dictatorship, or all of this will be in vain. That goes for all of you, not just Harry. I know how easy it is to fade into the grey area of morality. That boy..._

_In a way, maybe it's best that I'm going to die. I can feel myself succumbing more and more to the Dark – to the anger, that my life was this way, that I had to spend the best years of it always on guard, on the run, lying about who I was, plotting and scheming..._

_Draco, keep him sane. If anyone can, you can. Harry, keep control of the country, keep it together as only you as a figurehead can, but then give it up when you're no longer needed. Oh, who am I kidding – you've always been far more moral than I, you'll be fantastic. Ron, you're going to be the anchor of the new world, I think, when Harry's gone. You'll be brilliant._

_  
_

There was a noticeable tear-stain at this point in the letter, which was faithfully reproduced in every history, at the insistence of Harry Potter himself.

_  
_

_Now here I am, making prophecies. I hate them so! But at least, by the time you're reading this, it's all over, one way or another. And if you're reading it, then we won._

_Please remember me. But some things are worth dying for._

_Love,_

_Hermione Granger_

X

Severus Snape closed the book with a snap. A History of the Second Voldemort War, indeed! Ten years did not make the events far enough removed to call them history, especially not for those who felt every emotion as keenly as though it were yesterday.

She had been right, as usual, in most of her predictions. Harry Potter had become interim minister for the first three years after what was now being called the “Battle of London”, re-organising everything, streamlining bureaucracy, but mainly making sure that democracy was restored. He'd spent most of the combined Potter, Malfoy (Lucius had not survived the golems, so everything went to Draco) and Snape money on this, which came to several billion Galleons when added to the Ministry's own assets.

Then, once his three year term was done, despite howls of protest from the entire Wizarding community, he'd resigned to spend more time with his partner, Draco Malfoy. They'd never felt the need to formally marry, though one of the first acts of the new Wizarding Parliament (to replace the old, entrenched Wizengamot – its nickname was “Hermione's Home”) had been to legalise such unions.

When Harry had stepped down from his post, Weasley had been voted in with an overwhelming majority. He'd appointed Ernie Macmillan and Neville Longbottom as Deputy and Law Enforcement Ministers respectively, and the cabinet was doing rather well, now half way through its third three-year term.

Severus scowled. Except, of course, that they insisted on having these bloody Victory Balls every year. He had seen the point at the beginning, to raise morale in the broken and beaten community which Voldemort had left behind, but ten years on...

As soon as the Battle ended, Severus had stepped down from the Headmastership of Hogwarts. He'd wanted to go into retirement, but Headmistress McGonagall flatly refused to let him, saying that she needed a competent potions master, since Slughorn had decided to stay on in Australia to run the Institute. It would be a very different place, however, without Filius Flitwick, who had been felled by a rogue killing curse in the battle.

So Severus had stayed. Until now, that was. He surveyed his empty room, meagre belongings packed into one small trunk. It was time to go.

Except he'd been coerced by his godson into attending this bloody ball first.

X

Severus, as was his wont at these things, stood in a corner and glowered. People who hadn't been anywhere near the battle that day were dancing. Dancing! Dancing to celebrate the death of a megalomaniac. It seemed ridiculous, sacrilegious even.

Draco appeared at his shoulder. “Having fun, Uncle Sevviekins?”

“What do you think?”

Harry had appeared behind them, wont, as ever, to be wherever Draco was.

“I think that this is the last one of these you'll be at for a while.”

Severus shrugged. “True enough.”

Draco asked, “Where will you go?”

Another shrug. “Does it matter?”

Harry clapped him on the shoulder. “Just be sure to drop by the island once in a while, yes?”

The two of them had bought themselves a small island in the middle of the Carribbean, where they now spent most of their time. Their own little slice of Paradise, Harry called it. They were seen less and less in public, now. Ron had taken over the limelight, and with the clear-up done, they were no longer needed.

Severus smiled thinly. “Perhaps.” He did enjoy his visits to their home, but he needed to be alone, now. He'd been stuck at Hogwarts for too long. Like them, now that the rebuilding and restructuring was complete, he was no longer needed.

Seamus Finnegan had materialised out of nowhere. Funny, how this group of ex-students had become his closest friends over the past ten years. Well, they were all he had left of her, said a small voice in his brain, treacherously.

“Be sure to come by the Institute,” Seamus said. After the war, he'd settled in Australia, married one of the teachers at the Institute, and now divided his time between teaching Defence Against the Dark Arts and running a Muggle retail empire.

There was a clinking of a glass from the front of the room. The Minister of Magic, Mr. Ronald Weasley, was standing with his wife, Susan Weasley, nee Bones, ready to make their customary speech.

“As you know,” said Ron self-importantly. “Today is June the 6th, ten years since the Battle of London, at which the so-called Lord Voldemort was finally defeated. We'd like, on this special anniversary, to have a minute of silence to remember all those who gave their lives for this to be possible.”

Susan waved her wand, and all around the walls appeared images of the fallen.

She was speaking, now, but Severus was not listening. He had eyes only for one image. The bushy brown hair was all wrong, it should have been smooth, a short brown bob, but the eyes, the eyes....

He'd stopped listening, but the minister was still droning on, introducing the guest speaker for that night. Severus tuned in again with a start at the name.

“Did you know about this?” he whispered to Draco, shocked.

“Yes,” he said. “Now shut up and listen, Uncle. It'll do you good.”

“I now present to you,” said Susan Weasley, “Miss Ophelia Granger.”

Severus' eyes were riveted on her, as she took the stage. Ophelia was not her sister – she was too slender, too young, only eighteen, and the eyes were the wrong colour. Grey, not brown. But there was something of the woman he had loved in the way she walked, her self-confidence as she made her speech.

“I never knew my sister,” she began. “She sent our family away for our own protection after the Battle of Hogwarts. But I know of her. And I know our family, and what she would want me to say on this anniversary is, keep the faith. Keep to the entreaty of her last letter, the one that we've all seen. No more killing. Let us not let this happen again....”

Severus was not listening any more. Ophelia was still speaking, and yes, it was a good speech, but nothing that he hadn't heard before. Besides, she was wrong. The letter that everyone saw hadn't been her last. There was a third letter on that dresser. He put that thought aside, the pain still fresh, even after ten years.

The young woman was now coming to her closing remarks. “I only have one more thing to say. Each year, I have attended these balls, and each year we celebrate the same people. The Order of the Phoenix: Harry Potter, Draco Malfoy, Ron Weasley, Susan Bones, Neville Longbottom, Ernie Macmillan, Seamus Finnegan. Those who gave their lives: Hermione, Colin Creevey, and Filius Flitwick, to name but a few.

This year, I have spoken almost exclusively about Hermione. This is not to undervalue the contributions of others, because this was a team effort, but because by sheer virtue of being who I am, there is only one person about whom I am really qualified to speak.

But there is one man who is often forgotten in these Victory Celebrations, usually through his own design. I was lucky enough to have studied Potions under him at Hogwarts until a year ago, when I graduated and began my apprenticeship in Transfiguration.

Severus Snape is an underappreciated hero, ladies and gentlemen. Without him, my sister Hermione would never have perfected the golems which ended up turning the tide of the battle. Without his relentless commitment to the cause of light for thirty years, the Order would not have gleaned most of the information which led to the Dark Lord's defeat.

But most of all, I want to say a personal thank you. Because Severus Snape, ladies and gentlemen, was the love of Hermione's life, and without him, she would not have been able to do what she did. And what she did, saved us all.

So please raise your glasses, ladies and gentlemen, to Severus and Hermione.”

She toasted him, raising a glass of champagne straight at his corner. How did she know he was there? Somehow, there was a glass of scotch in his hand (probably Harry, he was nearest). Severus raised the glass in return, then downed it in one. The call was echoed throughout the room. “Severus and Hermione!”

He felt the loss of her more then than he had in years. As the rest of the room went back to their drinking and dancing, forgetting all too soon what had been lost, he indulged himself in memory one last time.

He took a yellowed envelope from his pocket. It was the third letter, the one he had never mentioned to anyone else. It had never needed delivering, since the intended recipient was simply

_  
_

_Severus -_

_I'm sorry that I lied. By this point you'll have figured it all out, what I did, how I hid the truth from you. You'll look over the parchment with my Arithmantic calculations, see how I deliberately made it illegible to anyone but myself, and curse me for not telling you the truth._

_Please don't curse me._

_I had no choice, Severus. You of all people know, that when you can do something for the Cause, even if it means sacrificing something dear, you have to do it. You sacrificed your childhood for this cause, Severus. What is my life compared to that?_

_So I had to lie. If you'd known what I was going to do, you'd never have let me. You'd never have left that room, and I couldn't lose you, Severus. I only knew one thing – I couldn't lose you. Not to Voldemort, not to my golems, not to anything. I had to get you out of there! Maybe it was unfair, but my heart couldn't have taken losing you. I feel like it's being ripped out of my chest at the mere thought. If you're reading this, it means you made it, and that thought makes me so glad I could practically sing. Only not really, because you know what my voice is like._

_I loved you so much._

_Scratch that, I do love you so. I don't think that death can take away this feeling, even if there's nothing beyond the grave. Please know that when it's finally your turn, I'll be right there waiting, presuming that there's some kind of afterlife. Which is not to say that I want you to join me soon – far from it. Have a life as you never could while under Voldemort's shadow. Travel. See the world. Much as it pains me to write it, fall in love again. Make some other woman as happy as you've made me. Oh, and make sure that Wizarding Britain survives intact first though, would you? Silly question. I know that you will. You always do what's right._

_It seems strange, to have such a surfeit of feeling for you, having only been together for six months. Not even, actually. Especially considering that we spent the first two months of that lying to each other about everything. It seems so silly now. But somehow, we fit, don't we Severus, you and I?_

_I want you to know that I am happy going to my death. You've made me happier than I ever could have believed, especially considering the fact that we're in the middle of a war. I never thought I'd find a grand passion. Then suddenly, you were there, and perfect._

_I love you, Severus Snape. I'm going to die, tomorrow. Know that you will be the last thing I think of. Please be strong._

_Always and forever yours,_

_H._

 

X

_  
_

There was some debate about what happened next. Some onlookers said that Severus Snape, after knocking back one last glass of scotch, simply vanished into thin air, Hogwarts anti-apparition wards notwithstanding. Others swore that the ghost of Hermione Granger came down from above, took his hand, and they walked out together, into the afterlife. There was even one story that he turned into an eagle, and flew out of the window, a spectral dove circling him as he left.

Whatever happened, the fact remains that Severus Snape was never seen or heard of again after the night of the Ministry Ball. I do not know what the truth is, or even if there can be a truth in matters such as these. We can only hope that somewhere, somehow, Severus found his Hermione once more.


End file.
